Heavily accented man left this number for a co-worker, after taking a message....man asked if I was married and stated that I sounded sweet!  What is going on???

I got a call from someone from this # calling my job threating.

This number called my boyfriend and my house and threatened to have the police pick me up from work because I supposedly owed money.

I got a phone call from a person claiming to be James Anderson with the Office of Dept Crime Prevention in New York. He stated I was involved in a criminal investigation on a failure to pay a debt and if I did not call him I would face legal action. When I looked up the number it was a fake, he called from 3473420183, when he put me on hold. I hung up and he called back and I said I was going to call the police and report him..he hung up and has not called back since.

I got a call at work today from a man with Indian accent stating his name is Eric Williams, Officer with Dept of Crime Prevention Investigation of New York City. He said I was a suspect in a case of defrauder. He wanted my attorney?s information and said he had an affidavit in front of him. He said "the police would be coming to my place of employment and putting me behind bars for 30 days." When I asked for the phone# there he said it was 646-461-3891 which is listed as a locksmith company in NY. I asked for an English speaking supervisor. He put on another India sounding man who said his name was Andy Smith, retribution officer. The caller ID showed the # as 052538374 which isn?t even enough #s for a telephone #. I quizzed them with many questions because they told me my social sec# and email address and home address asking me to verify that was me. I told them it might be but I wasn?t verifying anything until I understood what they were talking about. This is all because I applied online for a payday loan, but I never got the money and I never signed anything or accepted any loans. This seems to be some poor style of collections (which they broke every rule in the collection laws), or a scam.  I am reporting this call to the CRIME Prevention department in our county law enforcement, and reporting it to the news to make people aware of scams.

These people have been calling me none stop for the last two days.  And one of the guys had the nerve to ask me to send me a picture of me on his personal email address.  Now they are calling me at work and I keep telling them not to.  This is so crazy.  Telling me I defaulted on a pay day loan and if I don't take care of this today I will be arrested.  I told them to send me information in writing and he is telling me that is against the law.

This scam has been going on for well over a year, now and has been recognized as such by the BBB:

Chicago, IL ? August 5, 2009 ? The Better Business Bureau is issuing an alert about phony debt collectors that are calling consumers nationwide and claiming that they have defaulted on a payday loan and will be arrested if they don?t pay immediately. Claiming to be lawyers, the scammers say they are with the ?Financial Accountability Association? or the ?Federal Legislation of Unsecured Loans? and are equipped with a disconcerting amount of personal information about their potential victims.

?Because the scammers have so much information about potential victims, the BBB is concerned that this may be the result of a data breach,? said Steve J. Bernas, president & CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving Chicago and Northern Illinois. ?Thousands of people may have had their personal information compromised, and given the scammers? tactics, it appears that those who have previously used payday loan services could be particularly at risk.?

According to reports received by the BBB and posted online, the scammers accuse the victim of defaulting on a payday loan and claim they are being sued. The phony debt collector threatens that, if the victim doesn?t pay as much as $1,000 immediately via wire or by providing bank account or credit card numbers, he or she will be arrested and extradited to California within the hour to stand trial. The scammers often may have the victim?s Social Security, old bank account numbers or driver?s license numbers as well as home addresses, employer information and even the names of personal friends and professional references.

The BBB offers the following advice to consumers if they receive a suspicious telephone call about an outstanding debt:
* Ask the debt collector to provide official documentation in writing which substantiates the debt.
* Do not provide or confirm any bank account, credit card or other personal information over the phone until you have confirmed the legitimacy of the call.
* Review recent copies of your credit reports to ensure that the alleged debt is not affecting your credit. Consumers can do this for free once every 12 months, and can find more information here: http://www.ftc.gov/freereports
* Under the Federal Trade Commission's Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, debt collectors may not harass, oppress, or abuse any person while attempting to collect a debt.
* A debtor may be contacted between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. only and can be contacted at work unless instructed not to.
* File a complaint with the FTC online if the caller is abusive, uses threats or otherwise violates federal telemarketing laws.
* File a complaint with BBB online at www.bbb.org if you believe a debt collector is trying to scam you.

http://www.thinkglink.com/article/2009/08/06/ ... eading-says-bbb

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-618-5897

This is a very active group of scammers, many of whom are calling from India (and probably other countries) and are in cahoots with a group of American pay day loan scammers. They attempt to extort money from consumers with a myriad of false and illegal threats, and alternately pose as debt collectors, federal and state law enforcement officers, lawyers and bankers. Their trademark is to use meaningless legalese gobblygook phrases like "We are downloading warrants against you" or "We are filing an affidavit against you." Another trademark phrase is to threaten the consumer with something like this ridiculous phrase: "If you don't pay then only God can help you."

Typical of many financial scams of this variety, they usually demand payment via Western Union or MoneyGram or credit card. They use any number of phony names such as US National Bank, Federal Investigation Bureau, US Legal Investigation Bureau, Hopkins Law Office, United Legal Processing, Morgan Associates, United Pay Services, National Processing, White Collar Crime Unit and many more.  These criminals also use many phone numbers from many area codes; they're probably using caller-id spoofing software and/or VoIP to disguise their real location.

The main thing to remember is that anytime someone calls you demanding money to prevent your arrest, or demanding your lawyer's name so they can sue you, it is ALWAYS a scam. No debt collector (let alone criminals posing as debt collectors) has the authority to have anyone arrested for anything. (And it's illegal to them to threaten such a thing.) And since these foreign dirtbags routinely impersonate law enforcement, it's also important to remember that American law enforcement officers aren't in the business of debt collection.  (Debt is a civil, not a criminal, matter.)

The bottom line is, these are criminals trying to steal your money.

A consumer posting a complaint about these same scammers at http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-718-831-7157 notes that 718-831-7157 is associated with an India-based "outsourcing" telephone bank.  Though a reverse search on WhitePages.com shows that 718-831-7157 is an unlisted land line in New York City, information on Debtbuyers.Com shows that that number is used by India-based Intellisourze. (Source: http://www.debtbuyers.com/debtbuyers.asp ) My guess is that it's a VoIP phone number.

This is another piece of the puzzle that fits in perfectly with other information about this scam. There are some reports on 800Notes that have suggested that the crooks behind this offshore scam are also the crooks behind the notorious Bass/Ellis Crosby & Assoc./States Predisposition scams in Florida and Georgia. The interesting thing is that the number of complaints on here about the US National Bank/US Legal Investigation/Federal Investigation scam skyrocketed *after* April 7, 2008 when Florida obtained a $1.3 million judgment against Ted Ellis Crosby, shutdown his operations and barred him from ever conducting debt collections in Florida (Read http://myfloridalegal.com/newsrel.nsf/newsrel ... 5257424005858A6 ) There's certainly a good chance that the crooks placing these calls from India are doing so on behalf of the American crooks behind the Crosby/Bass/States Predisposition scams.

Here's the contact information for the phone bank in India:

IntellisOurzE BPO
701, Sapphier, Nr. Cargo Motors,
C.G. Road Navrangpura,
Ahmedabad - 9. (Guj.) INDIA.
E-Mail: info@intellisourze.com
Website: www.intellisourze.com

A check on the domain name "intellisourze.com" shows that the website and name registration was created on May 8, just one month *after* the Crosby scams were shut down in Florida:

Domain Name: INTELLISOURZE.COM
Registrant:  Pragra Infratech Pvt. Limited.
Email:  ankur.ranpariya@pragra.com  
908, Aksaht Tower, Nr. ICICI Bank
Opp. Rajpath Club, S.G. Highway
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India 380054
Tel. +91.7926871353
Creation Date: 08-May-2008
Expiration Date: 08-May-2009
Domain servers in listed order: ns5.znetindia.com ns4.znetindia.com
(Source: http://whois.domaintools.com/intellisourze.com )

Though scam calls from these crooks have been going on long before May 8, the frequency of complaints about these calls increased considerably after Crosby was shut down in early April.

This is conjecture, but appearances suggest that Crosby and company were originally running a two-pronged payday loan scam operation -- with some calls being made from Jacksonville, Florida and other calls being made from a phone bank in India (and possibly other countries); then, after the Florida Attorney General shut down the Crosby scams in Florida, the Crosby crooks transferred most of their scam efforts to the India phone bank.

If you are targeted by these criminals, be sure to report them to all the following federal and state law enforcement agencies (most of which you can do online or over the phone):

1) Alert the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov  Be sure to tell the FBI that you are being targeted by extortionists over the phone. And if the crooks claim to be law enforcement, lawyers, officers of the court or bankers, or if they threatened you with arrest, be sure to include that information in your report.

2) File a complaint online with The Federal Trade Commission at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en

3) File a complaint with your local police. Most police departments will take a report over the phone.  Be sure to tell them that you're being targeted by an extortionist and give them all the details.

4) The caller placed the call under a Texas area code. Even though the caller ID was probably spoofed or they're using VoIP technology to hide the fact that they're really calling from overseas, you should also file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/consumer/complain.shtml

5) File a complaint your state's attorney general, the contact information for whom is at www.naag.org

6) The U.S. Secret Service is responsible for protecting the country's financial infrastructure and payment systems from international and domestic threats. Call or write your local Secret Service field office to alert them to the details of this attempted extortion. The addresses and phone numbers for the local Secret Service field offices are listed at http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml or in your phone book.

If these crooks call back, promise them nothing, pay them nothing and tell them nothing other than that you know they're a scam and that you've reported them to law enforcement. (And be sure to report them to all the agencies above each time they call you.)

By the way, here's just a small sample of numbers used by this particular group of scammers. Read the reports and you'll see the same pattern time and again -- phony organization names, thick foreign accents, and oddly worded threats that are so melodramatic and ridiculous that it's laughable:

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-925-262-1327
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-678-954-6346
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-341-4004
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-856-831-0640
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-743-1140
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-410-505-8128
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-917-464-2534
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-210-858-6602
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-775-2121
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-743-1156
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-245-1402
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-245-0922
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-723-5572
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-904-425-2863
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-718-831-7157
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-904-425-2857
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-858-244-0444
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-954-678-9724
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-610-571-3252
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-310-909-8245

...and, many, MANY more.

I have been getting calls from a Marc Nichols all day for my brother about a legal matter. When I stated I saw the show on dateline about debt collection agency using fake officers name he hung up and he even went as far as giving me a badge number.

He called back to tell me my brother was behind the bars think indian accent. I called my brother and he was at work.

I'm calling the police to report it.

I received a call from a Mark Nicholas stating that I owed for a payday loan that I received and did not pay back and that if I did not pay they would come to my job and arrest me in about 2 hours. He stated that he was from the Federal Crime Investigation in New York. I know for a fact that I do not owe any money. Is this a scam?

this number called me saying i owed a payday loan and if i did not pay they would come to my job and arrest me i called pay day loan and they do not even service new jersey

I got a call from that guy too.

I received a voicemail on my work phone from a man named Mark Nicholas, he said he was with the Federal Crime Investigation and he had said he had my name and social security number involving a criminal crime. He said that I needed to call him back at 646-502-6812 before they send the case to my states court. What is going on here...is this a scam?

this phone number called and left a message on a work # with a supervisor saying that i was involved with a vehicle manslauter case and needed to call them asap... I called back and a man with indian accents was very rude and gave me someone elses social security # I am not even the person he is looking for.... wtf?????????/this is crazy

I did get a call from this number.  I spoke to someone who said his name was John Anderson but he had a distinct Indian accent.  He threatened legal actions and said the county would pick me up.  I think he is not telling me the truth

did they give u a weird vmail too?

i got a vmail from someone from that number and ask me to call them back stating a legal action?? wtf and then when i called them they gave me an aditutde and said they were from the crime and prevention in new york?? weird