Doing it Right/Wrong: The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Edition

An Estonian collection agency (Julianus Inkasso — p.s., you’ll need to know Estonian to read the site) has registered a website with a database of roughly 70,000 Estonian debtors.

The story comes to us from Estonian Public Broadcasting, which gives a little more detail about the Baltic collection agency’s site: not everyone has access (no checking up on one’s neighbors, for instance, even if you’re pretty sure they never pay any of their bills) and the names are behind an authentication wall so that one can’t “accidentally” stumble across the names while maybe Google-searching that one creepy guy at the coffee shop whose gaze lingers a little too long.

From the EPB post: “The debt register works as a social means of influence and calls on all debtors to pay their indebtednesses,” said Chairman of the Board of Julianus Inkasso Ülar Maapalu, noting that it could help people avoid transactions with those who have had trouble paying in the past.

Public shaming has long been used to try to influence social behavior. Sometimes it was the stocks; sometimes the pillory; sometimes it’s making your 14-year-old-son stand outside of a Kohl’s with a badly punctuated sign. (Seriously, parents: email me for my proofreading rates. I’m reasonable.)

Public shaming about debt, though, is not something we do here in America. That kind of activity is prohibited in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It’s also likely that we, as a society, have somehow transcended shame. We have a thick armor of “Real Housewives,” “Bachelors,” “Bachelorettes,” and Kardashians to shield us from that particular feeling. It’s not a given that this kind of program would even work here.

Still, we at insideARM.com thought we’d leave it up to you, the reader: