New rules approved by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFFB) took effect last week allowing debt collectors to email, text and message people on social media. Under the new rules, debt collectors can contact you on social media and attempt to friend you. However, debt collectors must identify themselves as debt collectors and must give you the option to opt out of being contacted online. All messages must be private and debt collectors cannot post on your page or do anything that can be seen by your contacts or the public. There can be no doubt that this is a bad rule and will ultimately hurt consumers. Rather than giving consumers the option to opt-in to such electronic communications, the rules always seem to put the burden on consumers to opt-out. Moreover, you can expect fraud to run rampant as hucksters and swindlers are already up and running and will not update their traditional attempts to steal your money by hiding as debt collectors behind telephones to doing so online. You can rest assured that these scammers will escalate and post online and ultimately rip off millions of dollars from unsuspecting consumers.