I received that same call today, did you recieve any help from the police department ? the # I received the call from was 760-437-6212.

They left me a voicemail.  Some guy with a foreign voice, saying he was a police officer.  My caller ID said it was from California, but i'm eastern time zone and he called before 10:30 am.  It's a scam, obviously.  I'm going to find out what police juristiction covers that area code and alert them that someone is impersonating a police officer.

Called my number left message said they were from the department of law and investigation.  haha no such department.  Thick accent said I would be in big mess if I didn't call them back in 10 minutes.  Then called again I answered and told them I was in a federal building ( the post office) they could talk to a federal employee and then this could be a federal offense.  Then I hung up.  I reported to local sheriffs office.  They called back and no one answered but they haven't called me again.  I ordered toys that morning on the internet.  Wondering if thats where they got my number

Called my number left message said they were from the department of law and investigation.  haha no such department.  Thick accent said I would be in big mess if I didn't call them back in 10 minutes.  Then called again I answered and told them I was in a federal building ( the post office) they could talk to a federal employee and then this could be a federal offense.  Then I hung up.  I reported to local sheriffs office.  They called back and no one answered but they haven't called me again.  I ordered toys that morning on the internet.  Wondering if thats where they got my number Also had a foreign thick accent.  Said his name was Officer Mark Williams.  He should a used a name from india would have been more credible. What a dumb a@@

I've been receiving calls from an Officer Harris from the Department of Law & Investigation saying that I have a lawsuit filed against me. I called him back and he transferred me to his "direct supervisor" who stated his name was Robin Thompson. When I asked what the charges were, he told me that I had 2 charges against my Social Security Number AND my Driver's License Number (both of which he actually knew and read off to me). When I asked him what the charges were he stated that I was being sued, but would not tell me who was sueing me, nor what the case was. I repeatedly asked him and he told me that if I did not cooperate he was going to have the police come and arrest me at my place of work. He disconnected the call, then called my place of work. He also has called my friends and family (I have no idea how he got their phone numbers) and has threatened all of them saying if I do not cooperate they will all go to jail for aiding me in avoiding this "legal case" they have against me.

I got a call from the same people only the call back number they used was 508-921-1006.  Same thick accent - wanted to transfer me to a supervisor, threatening to block my social security number.  They called both my cell and left a message and then called my direct office line and told my co-worker it was an emergency.  When I came on the line they said the same thing and I told them - they could say what they wanted but I kept their voice mail and was turning it over to the local and state authorities for prosecution and hung up.  They haven't called back.  They number they were calling from is located in Walpole, MA.  Very thick Indian - middle eastern accent.

A man of middle eastern decent "officer Paul Harris" called me several times leaving a nasty message about a legal matter filed under my name, SS number, DL number.  I needed to call back to 718-280-9831 to discuss taking care of this matter or have my Attorney call.  Seems very strange.

Keep calling my number and not leaving a message.

I don't know what has happened with your circumstance since then because it is now Feburary. I received a call also from Officer Paul Harris and the same dept. but he was telling me to call phone #702213186, he threatned me with my ssn as well, saying that if I didn't take legal matter, they were going to block my ssn. He claimed he was transferring to talk to one of his officers and it sounded like he told someone to come here. The guy claimed I owed a company I had a loan with a while back. However, I had already spoke to that company I had the payday loan with and they had already sent me verification that I was in good standing and did not owe them anything. I advised this to the caller after letting him dig himself into a hole and told him that I already have verification directly from the company. What did he do? Hung the phone in my face. Of course. Because it was a scam. He tried to scam and got scammed right back. Just becareful and take the necessary percautions to protect yourself.

I have been receiving calls so far between Jan 31st and Feb 4th from two different scammers stating that I owe money to Cash Advance America and CashNet USA and that there is a lawsuit against me. The first one, I do not know his name but the other one states he is "Officer Paul Harris". I saw in an earlier post that someone too has heard this name. I actually googled scams and that name and found this forum. The numbers that are calling me are 904-672-9973 and 916-395-0000 (from this number calling me, they always tell me to call 720-213-1864). Yes as stated above, they have deep Indian accents and are very rude. Sometimes that have lots of information about you. If any of you have had references on past payday loans and are getting these calls, make sure you let others know what is going on so they also don't communicate with these people. One of them tried to contact my friend already.
The day I started getting these calls it was scary and it has been scary but the first day I signed up with Identity Theft protection with Life Lock (www.lifelock.com)- the reps have been so helpful, they are also running a full report that includes court orders, payday loans and so forth. I also called Transuion (800-680-7289) and put a fraud alert on my social security # in case anyone tries to do anything with it- this is free and it last for 90days, so you have to call back after then to re-put it on, if you still want it on. What it does is when someone or u tries to apply for anything that requires a ssn #, they have to ask you questions only would know to verify to continue to process the transaction and it covers for all 3 credit bureaus. I also checked my credit report to make sure there wasn't anything I didn't recognize. I called the Better Business Bureau and was also told to make a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission ( https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ ).

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT VERIFY ANYTHING, DENY IT IF YOU MUST AND QUESTION THEM. IF ANYONE IS SERVING YOU WITH A LAWSUIT, YOU WILL BE SERVED WITH PAPERS AND DOCUMENTATION. SOME OF THEM WILL SAY THEY WANT TO SEND YOU INFORMATION BUT THEY ARE TRYING TO GET YOU TO VERIFY YOUR ADDRESS. DON'T!!!! Simply let them know that if they have all the information then they should know where to send it to if it has gotten serious. They eventually hang the phone up in your face when they feel that you are smarter than them. One of them tried to tell me that I got a payday loan that is not required to send documents until after I make a payment? So fake!!! Whatever!! They are crazy and their rudeness is only a tatic to make you feel scared. But have no fear, protect yourself but don't be pulled into their nonsense and discrepencies. To a certain extent, they make themselves sound real but please be wise. If you are served with a lawsuit or deliquent on a payment, you will always get documentation first, not a rude harassing, threatening phone call.

I posted this because I hope this helps someone. I'm tired of crime. Please protect yourself.

Extortion Scam Related to Delinquent Payday Loans

Washington, D.C.
December 07, 2010  FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691

? filed under: Press Release

The Internet Crime Complaint Center has received many complaints from victims of payday loan telephone collection scams. Callers claim the victim is delinquent in a payday loan and must repay the loan to avoid legal consequences. The callers purport to be representatives of the FBI, Federal Legislative Department, various law firms, or other legitimate-sounding agencies. They claim to be collecting debts for companies such as United Cash Advance, U.S. Cash Advance, U.S. Cash Net, and other Internet check-cashing services.

According to complaints received from the public, the callers have accurate data about victims, including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, employer information, bank account numbers, and the names and telephone numbers of relatives and friends. How the fraudsters obtained the personal information varies, but in some cases victims have reported they completed online applications for other loans or credit cards before the calls started.

The fraudsters relentlessly call the victim?s home, cell phone, and place of employment. They refuse to provide any details about the alleged payday loans and become abusive when questioned. The callers have threatened victims with legal actions, arrests, and, in some cases, physical violence if they do not pay. In many cases, the callers harass victims? relatives, friends, and employers.

Some fraudsters have instructed victims to fax a statement agreeing to pay a certain amount, on a specific date, via a pre-paid Visa card. The statement further declares the victim will never dispute the debt.

If you receive these calls, do not follow the caller?s instructions. Rather, you should:

Notify your banking institutions.
Contact the three major credit bureaus and request an alert be put on your file.
Contact your local law enforcement agencies if you feel you are in immediate danger.
File a complaint at www.IC3.gov.
Tips to avoid becoming a victim of this scam:

Never give your Social Security number?or personal information of any kind?over the telephone or online unless you initiate the contact.
Be suspicious of any e-mail with urgent requests for personal financial information. The e-mail may include upsetting or exciting but false statements to get you to react immediately.
Avoid filling out forms in e-mail messages that request personal information.
Ensure that your browser is up-to-date and security patches have been applied.
Check your bank, credit, and debit card statements regularly to make sure that there are no unauthorized transactions. If anything looks suspicious, contact your bank and all card issuers.
When you contact companies, use numbers provided on the back of cards or statements.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/paydayloanscam_120710



For at least the last four years, possibly longer, a group has been calling former payday loan applicants advising them that they have defrauded a bank and are now being sued for non-payment of a loan.  The callers will claim to be calling on behalf of an attorney's office (name varies), the Dept. of Law and Investigation, ACS, or other similar combinations below:

United Legal Processing Division
Midline Marketing
Crime Monitoring Services
Monetary Crime Division
U.S. National Bank
Attorney General?s Office (usually in California)
American Legal Services
Affidavit Consolidation Services (ACS)

You will be threatened with arrest, a costly trial and possibly worse.  In no shape, way or form can you be arrested for non-payment on a consumer debt.  Do not believe these threats, as they are without merit and cannot be carried out in the manner they allege.  

Who are they?

In the past when pressed by law enforcement for an address, the callers have provided the following information:

David Morgan and Associates
Morgan & Associates
Morgan Associates
954-727-8481
1155 Northwest 85th Street
Wintergarden, Florida  33150
(Address is likely invalid)

The collector's MO matches a once legit collections agency called Ellis Crosby & Associates.  Here are some links on them:

http://www.budhibbs.com/collectorpages/ellis_crosby_and_associates.htm
http://www.budhibbs.com/collectorpages/EllisCrosbyJudgment.pdf

They have been previously fined over $1.3 million for various violations.  They have been known to use phone banks in India to make their calls, which more or less coincides with the difficult to understand accent many of us detect when we are contacted.  

The last time this group went by any "official" name was back in 2008:

Ellis Crosby & Associates / Douglas & Morgan Associates
4494 Southside Boulevard Suite #200
Jacksonville Florida 32216
Phone:  800-928-3536 / (904) 928-3536
(Address is likely invalid)

There are NUMEROUS consumer alerts out against this group of individuals:

Florida:
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/061107/met_176207561.shtml

Kansas:  
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/01/ks_debt_collection.html

Colorado:  
http://www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov/press/ ... lls_likely_orig

Rhode Island:  
http://www.collectionscreditrisk.com/news/rho ... -3002135-1.html

West Virginia:
http://www.wvago.gov/internetloanscam.cfm

Missouri:
On July 15th, 2010 a Public Awareness Bulletin was sent out by Missouri Information Analysis Center.  

"..received reports from individuals in Ohio and Illinois reference suspicious telephone calls they received. In both instances, the callers are reporting that a voicemail is received from a man, with a Middle Eastern accent, identifying himself as an officer working with the Financial Crimes Unit.  The message indicates that the reason for the call concerns a loan made by the receiver or someone in the receiver's family. The voicemail requests that a return call be made and a telephone number is provided. When a return call is made, the caller is asked to provide personal identifying information such as their date of birth and social security number.

Reports indicate that the calls are frequent and persistent and that they even threaten arrest or legal action if information or money is not provided. It appears that the individuals making these calls may have access to some records connecting individuals and their relatives.  Missouri does not have a Financial Crimes Unit and all indications are that this is a fictitious agency. If you receive a similar phone call, please be advised that it is a scam and please contact your local law enforcement agency or the Missouri Information Analysis Center at 866-362-6422."

Bottom line:

Do not supply the callers with any additional information.  Inform them you have reported them to law enforcement and hang up.  If you haven't already, go ahead and report the calls to local law enforcement, your state's Attorney General and beyond.  Look up the local Secret Service branch's information in your area and get in contact with an agent there.  

If you ever applied for a cash advance online, your information is out there.  
Possible sources for the breach of your privacy are:

* The scammers obtained your information from Teletrack - a reporting agency used by many cash advance lenders to determine their risk lending to you.  The service is able to tell cash advance lenders if you have existing loans with other companies, for example.  Many state laws prohibit borrowers from having more than two cash advances out at the same time.

* The scammers created their own fake payday loan application site.  People looking for a cash advance went to the site and applied, thus freely providing the scammers with their information for malicious use at a later time.  

* The scammers were able to get into the database(s) of cash advance lenders - probable targets being Sonic Payday and Cashnet USA.  


How to protect yourself:

* Inform your employer.  You are likely getting calls at home and/or at work, so make sure your employer is aware the calls are part of a scam and to not take them seriously.  Advise the callers that they are no longer allowed to call you at work.  If they continue to call, document the date and time of the calls you received.  Save voice mails left if at all possible.  

* Change your number(s).  For some this may not be an option, for others a one-time number change can be done free of charge.

Be advised - any references you listed on your payday loan application will be contacted.  Let those people know that this is a scam, and they can disregard.

* Use Google Voice.  Google Voice is a great replacement voice mail system for just about any phone number you use.  Messages can be transcribed and voice mail recordings can be saved as mp3 files.  

Pro Tip - call the scammers with a Google Voice number before turning off your old phone numbers.  Make sure when you call you identify yourself so they can start up their script.  At any point after they have your information pulled up just hang up.  They will then start religiously calling your Google Voice number.  At this point, you are free to change your regular phone number(s) and enjoy not having these people ever call you again.  (And laugh at the fact these people are basically talking to a brick wall several times a day)

The scammers change their numbers frequently.  Law enforcement used to think it was because the callers ran out of minutes on their prepaid wireless accounts or they were shuttered due to fraud, but now they understand it's simply to evade detection by savvy consumers online.  With the proliferation of VoIP, it's even easier for the crooks to stay a couple of steps ahead of law enforcement.  Below is just a sampling of the 30+ numbers that have been used in recent memory.

1-201-244-7722
1-209-349-7382
1-209-797-2212
1-212-500-0839
1-213-256-0408
1-213-995-3039
1-281-763-0433
1-347-289-3902
1-347-844-6817
1-347-844-6831
1-424-354-4270
1-516-232-8905
1-516-232-8935
1-518-212-0219
1-561-300-8018
1-561-210-4185
1-626-200-4646
1-631-456-4041
1-646-274-1143
1-646-810-8635
1-650-241-4604
1-707-401-4056
1-707-633-2789
1-708-401-0535
1-716-442-2824
1-717-862-4080
1-718-705-8669
1-760-514-0132
1-760-563-5384
1-772-318-4938
1-850-201-1111
1-858-777-1977
1-859-908-2281
1-866-860-4509
1-877-226-7488
1-888-706-7463
1-888-771-9249
1-888-785-4479
1-909-327-4870

So can they really do anything to you?

It's not a simple yes or no answer.  Logic dictates that, if they really wanted to take you for a ride and drain your bank accounts, they already would have.  

So, why haven't they?  

Authorization.  

Why do you think you are being called so much?  Perhaps it is because they like the sound of your voice?  No, they have to have your authorization to take any form of payment from you, period.  The callers know their audience, and that audience is typically a bunch of people that have applied for payday loans in the past.  Most of those people they call couldn't afford an attorney if they wanted one, and are so used to receiving collections calls that so long as they sound like a real collector, they will likely be perceived as one.

Furthermore, they don't even really want to talk to your attorney - that just sounds official and scary enough.  A real attorney would take the callers to task and write them off as two-bit con artists.  The callers need you, in writing, to authorize payment against the fictitious debt they claim you owe.  Go ahead, ask them for proof you owe the debt - more commonly known as verification of debt.  See what they say.  A phone authorization carries very little weight, so if they have something signed by you on file, you are done for - and the callers know that.  That authorization is the only thing these callers are doing by the book, and for good reason.  If they just went all willy nilly and made an ACH debit from your checking account, without your written approval, you could in turn report the transaction as fraudulent to your financial institution.  In about 7-10 business days, you would get the funds returned to your account.  Then the scammers would be up against a bank and their team of lawyers and investigators.  

Bottom line:

If you haven't paid the callers a dime, don't.  If you planned on paying them to shut them up, just don't.  Remember - you are not being contacted by a legally licensed, ethically owned and operated collector.  Read up on the FDCPA - http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf - and know your rights.

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-646-274-1143/3

I received a call today Dec 6 saying that I took a payday loan in March 2010 with Cash Net.  I have never taken out a loan with this company and have no idea what they are talking about.  They said that there is a lawsuit and when I refused to pay.  I was told that they were going to call the police and I would have to prove that I did not take out this loan.  Also, they had my address, cell number, last 4 of my ssn and who I bank with.  I ask them several questions about the loan, such as the banks name and the date of the loan.  The man that called me identified himself as Mr. Austin of ASC a company I never heard of and he got very rude and hung up the telephone.

They first called me from this number a month and the half ago stating a company is filing a claim against me for nonpayment of a loan then hungup when I asked questions.  Then they called my job twice and left a voicemail on my phone stating i need to call them asap.  I talked to them on the phone they had my social, address, work number and who i banked with.  He claimed to be officer Sean Martin from the department of law and investigation.  Said I borrowed money and never paid it back he was unwilling to tell me the name of the company i owed and couldnt tell me the date.  The more questions I asked the more upset he got and told me he would have me put in jail if I didnt pay.  Become very rude and told me he would have me fired from my job.  So everybody do not give your account info even if they have your social and everything else.


Be Blessed

I just got a call from this number, I didn't answer, they left a message for my husband.  They said their name was Officer Marc Williams.  He also sated it was about a lawsuit being filed. I could hear other telemarketers inthe background. I recently received a disturbing call from another number, (5083489254) stating that I took a loan and didnt pay it back. I didnt even take out a loan with that company.  And my husband has never had a payday loan. I don't know how they get your number and your information.

I have recieved calls on my personal and work number.  The guy had a very thick accent and stated that someone had filed an affidavit against me (three counts).  There read back back all of my personal infromation and told me that I had borrowed money ffrom cash net marketing (I've never heard of them).  The guy would not answer my questions because it appeared that they were reading from a script.  When I stated that I felt that this felt like a scam, his reply, "Well, we will be sending an officer to your home and work place".  This is disturbing.

WOW just got another phone call from these people! I guess i have to take action because they are getting pretty annoying its time for a real lawsuit to go against these people anyone with me?

They called me today at 10:21 am.  I'm in the eastern time zone.  Could barely understand the voicemail since his accent was quite heavy, but I did get out of it that "there is a warrant against me, and if I do not call it will go to court".  I called the police department for the town of Imperial, California (which is in the 760 area code), telling them what this guy said in the voicemail.  I told them that he was impersonating a police officer in my book, and they pretty much agreed.  They instructed me to file a police report with my local department, which is the "official" way of handling these scammers, which I will do today.

I have received phone calls from this number twice, and from another number 954-703-2202 many times. They become rude and threaten you with the courts . But their not looking for me their looking for my mother. who doesn't even live with us.

Keep getting calls from 760-483-3077 and 954-703-2202 they are rude and leave messges that the call is urgent and action will be take if the call is not returned they call my house and my job.

Who are these people?? They are VERY RUDE!!!