Obviously what the kid did was illegal and morally wrong, and contacting his family was certainly effective. But I believe that contacting his family probably violated most state and federal debt collection laws. After all, essentially what happened is that he was late on a $380 debt payment.
Imagine if you were a few days late on a credit card payment, and they started calling your relatives telling them that if they weren't paid, they would be going to the cops. That is very illegal, and in that scenario the credit card company could be sued for damages. These two scenarios have some legal equivalence - someone that is owed a debt contacts family and uses embarrassment as leverage to collect. There have been many cases where criminals have successfully sued their victims and this may be a good candidate. This blog post, which this kid's lawyer would paint as a public celebration of the damage done to his client's life, doesn't help matters.
So what he did in this case was logical, and probably even cut the kid a break, but it probably exposed him to legal liability. He should have just gone to the cops and let it play out if that was his actual intention after not being paid.
> After all, essentially what happened is that he was late on a $500 debt payment.
That is far too nice way to describe the issue and I would assume that even in US these are two separate issues (being late from mutually agreed payment and trying to scam someone)
The problem is that legally, unless and until the kid is found guilty of fraud or theft (or he pleads guilty to such a crime), the money owed is nothing more than a debt that this guy attempted to collect in illegal ways.
This is like trying to collect a debt and the other person wilfully denying there was ever a transaction. I doubt this is legally the same as being late on a debt. IANAL
Any good lawyer would say that the two weren't necessarily connected. All the author knew when he contacted this kid's family was that he was owed $380. He was attempting to collect on that debt by using embarrassment and threats of police involvement.
I still don't see how this is a debt. A debt is something you willingly take and make your best to pay it back. If you can't, you stay in contact with the other party. You don't just delete your account and play dead. Playing devil's advocate is sometimes a good thing, but that 22 yo dude was just being plain shady. He clearly never intended to pay.
No. What I'm saying is that until it has been declared as theft/stealing by a court of law, the author here is probably taking on some liability by notifying his family and publicly relishing in the aftermath via this blog post.
There's a little concept that you may have heard of: innocent until proven guilty. No crime has been committed until a court of competent jurisdiction says it has.
Imagine if you were a few days late on a credit card payment, and they started calling your relatives telling them that if they weren't paid, they would be going to the cops. That is very illegal, and in that scenario the credit card company could be sued for damages. These two scenarios have some legal equivalence - someone that is owed a debt contacts family and uses embarrassment as leverage to collect. There have been many cases where criminals have successfully sued their victims and this may be a good candidate. This blog post, which this kid's lawyer would paint as a public celebration of the damage done to his client's life, doesn't help matters.
So what he did in this case was logical, and probably even cut the kid a break, but it probably exposed him to legal liability. He should have just gone to the cops and let it play out if that was his actual intention after not being paid.