Stop calling me!!

Received a call from them on my cell phone.  When I didn't answer that, they called my work.  He was a foreign accented guy with a heavy Indian accent.  He had an American name.  I listened to what he said and told him to send me the documents.  He asked me to verify my email address.  After about 10 minutes on the phone, I hung up. He called back about 5 minutes later and asked me if I was on the internet to get the info.  All he sent me was a invoice showing the amount that I owed.  These people are scammers big time.  They call from different numbers.  I hope someone catches them soon.

This guy left messages saying a person who is a "friend" to me is "doing illegal fraud" and that my name is associated with it. He is asking me to comply by calling back "or it will be taken that I am a participant" with my "friend". He is calling himself "Officer Alan Taylor calling from the financial crime division". He wants to tell me about this fraud being done and what the penalties of this will cost me and my friend. He is a extremely heavied accented East Indian man who would of only gotten our connection from FACEBOOK. I joined in, and located my ex-co-worker in June 2010. I have not seen this "friend" since sometime in 2008 before her 30+ husband died at home of a heart attack, and left her with 4 girls aged 14 to 8 years old. I am telling you all these details because this "officer" is a very poor, and obvious scammer that needs to be caught! He does not care who he tries to scare and scam!  WHY would he give his personal phone number? WHY does he say "Good luck and have a blessed day" at the end of the message?  How does someone get help with this level of scummy people???  I have shared this message with my ex-co-worker and he has been calling her too. He has called and threatened her at home, on her cell and at her job.  I had my current co-worker call his number and he said he worked with Playboy then asked her if she wanted to F**K? which she then immediately hung up.  So~ PLEASE DO NOT CALL THIS WANNANE SCAMMER!!!! I reported his number to the telephone department of fraudulent calls. But I don't expect too much.  11/27/2010

I just got the same call today.

I just got a message from this number and the Indian man said a lawsuit has been filed against my husband, his SSN# is frozen and our residence is under investigation. I got a little freaked out but assumed that if anything like that had happened, we would have received something in writing.

Unfortunately, I have heard that some new law has let debt collectors take you to court for old debts. Is that true?

ok this company just called me and they knew my address my ss# my DL number everything, saying that I owe for a payday loan.... I have never taken out a pay day loan. I did apply for a few payday loans on line ... What do I do to find out how they got all my information?

Total scam artists. I keep calling them back threatening them with the FBI. Now they are acusing me of harassing them. They have caller ID. Too funny. If you want to get back at them, just keep calling them back. They don't like it. DO NOT GIVE OUT OR VERIFY YOUR INFORMATION!!

This lady called me a few days ago on my house phone and left a message saying she was a officer and that I needed to get in contact with her asap to avoid legal actions and if I don't call her back get an attornney bcs I would face hard charges. The message was threaten and pissed me off I knew it had to be a scam. I called my family and all my friends we researched they are a scam and they get your information online!!! I call the fbi the agent told me to contact local police department. My mom brother is a investigator trying to get him to look into this. People are crazy and steal your information I will never do anything online again. I called her back and left a message and told her I contacted fbi. Something need to be done about this bs!!!

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 keep getting the same call they keep leaving messages on my phone stating that I put in for a pay day loan and that I have to go to court in California for fraud charges.  I kept asking this same middle easterner for the name of the company but he keeps saying that he does not have that information.  But keeps saying that I have to pay and that an officer is going to come to my house or work of place.  He got real irate with me and told me to go to court to work it out.  What can I do about these harrassing calls.

I had been getting the same call, no message.  Finally this morning at 7:25 am my time they left a message --  a middle easterner saying there is a lawsuit against our address and my husbands social security number has been frozen by the government for investigation and that we needed to call back and verify his social security number so they can help -- yeh.  Middle easterners are my least favorite people and I'm going to give them that information do they think people are really that stupid.

I just had the same thing happen to me.  But they keep calling!! Driving me crazy and dont know how they got my information.

Scam. Some nucklehead middle easterner finally left a message saying he needed my SSN because someone filed a lawsuit against me. You could tell he was reading from a script. Too funny.