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When a Chicago man fell behind on his car payments his lender allegedly took the extreme measure of trying to ruin his marriage by leaving a message naming a possible girlfriend.

Larnell Pillow has filed suit against Prestige Financial Corp of Salt Lake City, Utah claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress. His lawsuit claims that an agent for the lender intentionally left a phone message with his wife mentioning his secret girlfriend. Pillow says that the malicious message to his wife, ''turned my world upside down. I’d lost my job. Then I lost my wife and kids. It’s just a domino effect.''

In the early stages of the relationship with his auto lender, Pillow and the lender's agent were on friendly terms. Friendly enough that he mentioned to the agent that he had a girlfriend in addition to a wife. That all changed when he lost his job and fell behind on his payments. When he protested about the phone message, the agent allegedly responded: ''Now we know a pressure point to use on you.'' That statement led Pillow's attorney, David Boyd, to call the agent’s actions ''sexual-scandal blackmail.''

Tattling to a man's wife is somewhat new, but unscrupulous debt-collection practices are not. 1978’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was intended to protect consumers from abuse, but it is often ignored because there are too many complaints for enforcement officials to follow up on each one. Hopefully, losing a chunk of money will slow this particular agent down.

[Thanks to the team @ Car Loans With No Credit for the tip on this juicy topic!]

P.S.

For anyone who has been the victim of similarly dastardly behavior, you might want to get an FDCPA attorney on your side.