PEOPLE KEEP CALING SAYING I OWE MONEY EVEN THOUGHT I HAVENT TAKEN OUT ANY LOANS MY IDENTITY WAS STOLLEN THEY EVEN GOT MY FEDERAL INCOME TAX ALSO NOW I HAVE TO HAVE A PINNUBER FOR EVERYTHING. PLUS I HAVE LIFE LOK THAT CHECKS FOR ANY CHANGES AND CONTACTS ME IF THEY SEE ANY THING

SO IM NOT ANSWERING THAT NUMBER BECAUSE THEY WANT ME TO GIVE THEM INFO WHICH LIFE LOCK SAID NEVER GIVE YOUR INFO IF THEY HAVE IT THEY SHOULD GIVE IT TO YOU.

I made the mistake of taking out a pay day loan a while back and now am getting these crazy calls. About a week ago a man called and scared the crap out of me. Saying that I owed thousands of dollars and I needed to pay or I end up in jail. I talked with him for a while and went back and forth about payments. He said that I needed to fax him the set up of payment arrangements asap or else my case would be released to my local law enforcement. I was suppsed to make my first payment today. I called the number over and over which has been busy. So I thought maybe they have another contact number, that's how I came upon this site.

THIS IS A SCAM!! As you all are aware, these "dot heads" keep calling and asking for a lawyer.You tell them that you are an attorney. Ask them how you can help them. They will tell you that they emailed a legal action against you. Inform them that legal documents will not be electronically mailed to you, they would come via priority mail needing signature or a sheriff/constable would hand deliver it. They will try to cut you off so every time they talk, you keep talking as well but make sure you make sense with what you are saying. After about a min, tell them that you have made a complaint to the local police department from their previous calls (even if this is the first time they called you) and that the police have put a phone tap on their number and it is now being traced as well as recorded. Inform them that the police will be knocking on the door at their office of StarNet Inc in Raleigh NC within the hour. They will then either hang up on you or try to threaten you in some sort of way. Let them know that the Federal Government is also aware of the scam so they are tapped into it as well through the FCC. Let them know that they will go to Federal Prison and face up to a 27 year sentence. Then tell them that they should politely hang up their phone, aboard their flying carpets or their camels, go to work their shift at 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts, and STOP TRYING TO SCAM PEOPLE!!

Got a call from "robert davis" today. He represents a "law firm" called "walters legal associates". Apparently I took a loan from american payday cash that I didn't not pay back(I actually did not get a loan just to clarify). He didn't ask for me to pay the debt but he was going to file the lawsuit against me. I may be picked up by the police at anytime from home or work. This guy is silly. I hope he calls back tomorrow so I can play with him. I wonder what would happen if people started blowing up their phone back. They'd probly change the number and call you back. What can be done to make sure my "identity" isn't stolen. They do have my info. Ill never put that info out online again. Lesson learned. I don't know what category to file this under because he never tried to get me to pay. He just called to say I was being sued and will go to jail.

I made a mistake once again trying to take at a Pay Day Loan on line, and once again I have this crazy man calling me a dozen or more times a day. (919-653-0786).  this has happened about the same time of year the last 3 years.  Not sure why I went to an online site for a loan.  He is all SCAM will being calling our local police. i have learned my lesson this time.

One of my employees (Jim) was receiving calls from this guy with an East Indian accent. The caller told him that if he owed money and if he didn't pay for the police would arrest him. After a few days of calling our employee, the caller began calling our office and threatening our office employees if they were interfering with a police matter if they didn't go get Jim off the shop floor to take his call he would have them arrested.

What a joke...After we confronted the guy and told him we knew about his scam, he finally stopped calling. We had his number blocked and turned him into the Nuisance Bureau.

Keep getting calls from these people!!  Day and night, never letting up. This time his name isJames Anderson. Same message as above,I have a list of numbers for the last year they have called me over and over again.I dont answer the phone any more guess I gotta change my number after 35 years!! All bacause stupid people like THEM!!

I am a receptionist and this number keeps calling asking for different employees and when I tell them they are unavailable they ask for me to give them the message to call them back at the 919-653-0786 number or they will be arrested in 24 hours. The guy said his name was "Jeff Scott" but his very hard to understand accent would say otherwise. They say they are from a legal office. This is definitely a scam.

same thing, said i had a criminal case and needed my lawyers information...CALLED ME 52 TIMES!!!!

same here currently has called 54 TIMES in 15 minutes! pissed the hell off!
I have a criminal case against me and they need my lawyers information....crap!
calling from (916) 653-0786

got the same phone call man it's a headache and a half it's okay tho i have contacted the police as well as a fbi site that deals with these kind of call i got my calls from a 9196530786 number and a 8018555492 and a 7186909021 scam all the way waste of my breath kinda had fun snapping at frist needed to yell but now just pissed off

Tell them to go screw themselves. This is a SCAM!

the same thing just happened to me did he know the last four digits of your social also?

SOME IDIOT CALLED ME FROM 919-653-0786 AND SAID THEY WERE A LAW FIRM. I IMMEDIATELY ASKED WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND GIVE ME THE NAME OF YOUR LAW FIRM, HE SAID SOMETHING WITH DONUTS IN IT AS THE LAW FIRM. PLEASE PEOPLE DISREGARD ALL THESE PHONE CALLS AND JUST HANG UP. THESE CALLS ARE COMING FROM RALEIGH NORTH CAROLINA IF YOU NEED TO KNOW. SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM JUST KEEP CALLING THEM AND ALL CALLS WILL STOP.

They keep calling my job saying I owe them money and I don't!!! They started out by calling my cell saying that I was going to be served with some papers and taking to jail. I told them I was going to record them when they called my job and they hung up on me!!! They said they were a law firm about America cash advance!!!

I would love to go after these guys they are really starting piss me off let me know if you get any information and how we go about sueing the hell out of them I wish I could find there adress where there calling from because they would have I deal with me fce to face

I have been called many times by these "collectors" I read teh blogs prior and know that I am not to send any money.  I basically inform the person that i do have an attorney and have also reported them to the DOJ and State Attorney Generals  Office.  This has stopped the calls.

I will help you. I got the same call - I told them I already called the police department and I know it is a scam.

By BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) , CINDY GALLI and MATTHEW MOSK (@mattmosk)
June 7, 2012

Hundreds of thousands of cash-strapped Americans have been targeted by abusive debt collectors operating out of overseas call centers suspected of links to organized crime in India, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

The calls are part of a massive scam, one that appears to target struggling Americans -- especially those who have gone online to apply for payday loans. Armed with personal information from those pilfered applications, the threatening callers, who claim to be debt collectors poised to initiate legal action, have managed to pry loose millions of dollars from their victims -- even when the victims never owed money in the first place.

"This is what we call a phantom debt collection scam," said Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. "It's a very pernicious and innovative new fraud."

Working through call centers in India, the commission estimates that the criminals have dialed at least 2.5 million calls, persuading already cash-strapped victims to send them more than $5 million. Some have reported receiving dozens of calls per hour. They are victims like Cindy Gervais, of New Orleans, who went online for a quick loan when her husband's car was hit by a driver who didn't have insurance.

Even though she paid the loan off, the so-called "phantom" debt collectors with Indian accents began calling to say she still owed money.

He more or less told me that if I didn't pay, they were going to have someone on my doorstep to arrest me," she told ABC News. "And that they were going to contact my place of business, and tell them what kind of person I am."

At first, she said she resisted. Then the calls became more frequent, and started to ring on her cell phone, and at the grocery distribution company where she had worked for 27 years.

"I was more or less was in panic mode because he told me there would be someone before noon at my place of business to arrest me and take me to jail," she said tearfully. "So I agreed to pay him."

After receiving scores of complaints, investigators with the FTC said they began tracking the calls, and following the payments. They alleged the payments led them to a California company run by an Indian-American named Kirit Patel, and that such scams would not be possible without American front men.

"I would say that all roads of this scam, or many of the roads of this scam, lead back to Mr. Patel," said the FTC's Leibowitz.

ABC News tracked Patel for weeks, from the suburbs of San Francisco to Austin, Texas.

Patel refused to talk. But his lawyer, Mark Ellis, said he believes it is far too early to pass judgment on his client. Ellis, a Sacramento-based attorney, told ABC News that Patel was hired for a nominal fee to set up an American shell company, and had no idea what the call centers in India were doing.

"I can tell you, he was as snookered by the people in India as anybody," Ellis said. "He's a 69-year-old man who is nearing his retirement who thought all he had to do was set up some corporations and everything was on the up and up. He's completely dismayed that he has become the lightning rod of this entire problem."

A close friend of Patel's also defended him in a brief interview at his home, saying Patel was not trying to defraud anyone -- he was just an unwitting, bit player in a larger scheme.

"If Mr. Patel was just a cog in the wheel he seems to have been a pretty big cog," Leibowitz said. "It is clear that Patel was integrally involved with this scam."

Leibowitz points to thousands of pages of financial and phone records gathered by the FTC and filed as part of a civil case brought against him in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento last month. When FTC lawyers sought to freeze his assets and prevent his business from continuing to operate, Patel responded by invoking his rights against self-incrimination. His lawyer told ABC News he has had to be careful in how he responds to the allegations in civil court "because there is a potential criminal action," but that Patel maintains the allegations against him are false.

Federal investigators said the phantom debt collection operation that allegedly benefitted from Patel's assistance was one of several that all trace back to the same small town in Western India called Ahmedabad. Callers use technology to make it appear that the calls originate inside the U.S. Victims provided ABC News with recordings of dozens of the calls, and many of the thickly accented callers appear to be reading off a script.

"Subpoenas have been readied, and Monday morning you're going to be picked up from your home," one caller says on a victim's voicemail. "And you have children. Don't worry about your children. We have a childcare department to take care of the children."

"You will be behind bars for six months," said another caller. "And once you go behind bars, you will lose your job. Once you are behind the bars, you won't get a single drop of water."

William Peerce Howard, a Tampa attorney who represents victims of harassment from debt collectors, said it takes an especially twisted criminal to use threats and coercion to pry money from someone who is already struggling financially

"These guys really are the most visible villains in America today," he said. "They make a living scaring people."

Mark Merola, of Florida, said he just panicked when the caller told him he might be arrested at the deli where he works in a Florida retirement community.

"I was nervous. I didn't want to embarrass myself, my family," he said. He used his debit card to pay the collector $576.

Afterwards, he says he realized "how stupid I was."

"It just happened so fast," he said. "I got scared."

Leibowitz said he hopes with more attention, future potential targets of the scam will recognize red flags before they turn over any money.

If callers say they are from the police, consumers should know that law enforcement officers do not collect debt for private parties. If the caller is speaking with a thick Indian accent, but calls themselves by a names such as Officer Mike Johnson, that should be a tip off. And if they're calling 40 times in two hours, that's another red flag. "Legitimate debt collectors, legitimate pay day lenders don't do those sorts of things," he said.

Merola said he would like to see anyone involved in the scam prosecuted aggressively.

"There's no place in society for these people," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/phantom-debt-co ... 16512428&page=2

leaving threatening messages / some guy with a heavy accent/ telling me or my attorney to call back right away or I could be in big trouble by law enforcements. / not clear  as to what I'll be in big trouble for/ has been calling at home and on my cell

They just call me today and wanted $550 out of $2000. What should I do?

I arrived home from a doctor's appointment to a message on my answering machine from these creeps. Here was this Indian (I presumed) guy leaving the most rude message you can imagine and trying to sound intimidating and threatening. I didn't appreciate that or the tone inflection and promptly called the number back. I asked who the jack a** was that called my number leaving such a message, and I must have struck a nerve. "Who are you calling a jack a**," he stammered. I replied "whoever left that message on my machine" I replied. Then the a_ _hole tried to further intimidate me by saying he'll make my life miserable like I can't imagine and then I'll call you back in a few days. I told him to screw himself and never call my home again and the hung up on him. Any chance of catching these guys?

They just called me it is PHONY!!!!!

Received a call from them that I was being sued for a payday loan. They asked if I had a lawyer. I informed them that I did and that they can give all the information to him and hung up. Decided to have some fun so I called back about a half hour later playing the part of my lawyer. They shuddered and hung up.

I dod apply for and receive apyday loan a while ago.  But that company is reputable and the first time I got one of these calls I called my company and they said that my account was in good standing and that this was a scam.  I have reported this to the FTC my local polica and to my State Attorney.   But they all say the same thing it is a scam and you have to ignore the calls.  They are tough to catch.   I would really like to put one to them though.  So I will join any fight.

I am also getting call from this guy. But they are also calling me from 716-483-3761. When I called the guy back he just said it was a law office. I know it is against the law to say you are from the States Attornies office but he doesn't really say which state so I guess you can't get them on that.

I have been receiving calls and just got one from the Indian Guy at work. I told them that the person they wanted to speak to is not allowed to have personal calls at work. He said thank you. They always call my cell back to back. I have told them before that I know they are a scam but he did not seem to care. he wanted me to provide the website saying they are a scam. I told him to google his phone number and he would see it for himself and I hung up. SCAM!!!!!

Call states i am having a warrant issued for a loan i haven't taken out.  I have asked them to stop calling and they just get nasty and hang up and call again the next day. I am on national no call registry!

They call saying they have my ssi which they probably do and threaten me with lawsuit for money which I have not borrowed. It is most likely from a loan that I applied for but decided not to take.

Best Regards,

Charles Souza

We should probably be friends them.  I am giving them hell.