Fraud
Complaint
Cynthia Montoya
Country: United States
Scott Anderson has called and said that I have until the end of the day to call or I would be served papers for a court matter. He has left this message twice and still no papers. Also, don't they know that when you're served with papers you're not give a "heads-up". I have checked all three of the major credit bureaus and there is nothing listed with this name. I fell into this trap once before and I think they found me again. I owed a small loan and I made arrangements with them to pay it. After giving them 425.00, the REAL company called me. It was only after speaking to them that I found out AFG was a fraud. I reported it to my bank and their fraudulent department investigated, I got my money back and now they're trying to attempt to scam me again!
Comments
Business failing, Alex???
This has little to do with happy or unhappy "customers", as debtors aren't customers, and you don't respond to the self interest that drives normal businesses to keep their customers happy so they will come back. It was never their choice to deal with you, whether they really owe anything or not.
Classical game theory applies:
Normal businesses play "repeated round" non-zero sum games, so they screw a customer, they lose future business, tit-for-tat.
You are playing a "one-off" zero sum game, so you don't care what happens after that. Go for the money, get it, and you're gone.
The nature of complaints varies from company to company.
Some just have complaints of robocalls.
Some have complaints indicating they stop calling when notified, others that they say they will stop calling but keep calling, still others that they brag they will never stop, followed by abuse.
Some companies have compliance problems with normal employee contacts, but respond to complaints to legal or compliance departments.
Others ALWAYS have complaints of calls by "process servers" and other impersonations, with those consumers who check finding no lawsuit was filed.
With enough reports, your management style and structure, and your compliance capability and even training, is visible in the complaint profiles.
This isn't just with the fake Indian debt collection scammers everyone knows about, but also with U.S. based debt collectors. Illegal noncompliant actions that further obtaining payment without validation show up together, whether deception and impersonation, threats, split "caller/closer" deception, abuse and harassment, illegal disclosure to third parties, harassment at work, etc. etc.
When reports of deception or abuse show up, they often also include reports the alleged debts are not owed. The two go together.
As an example, look at the FTC settlement with Allied Interstate, which paid a $1.7 Million penalty a couple years ago. They tried to spin it as some problem with their call system, but FTC's own press release clearly indicated that not only were harassing calls the problem, but that they were collecting money from people who didn't owe them, evading validation.
ALL illegal tactics further fraudulent collection.
Standard models of deception and intelligence analysis apply, including the usual heuristics. When you find deception, look for more, since the adversary has revealed the intent and capability (training, lack of supervision, management permission, etc.) to engage in deception. When you find abuse or harassment, look for deception, since it furthers the aims of deception (i.e. works toward a common goal, evading and collecting without validation).
If you suspect deception used to get money, you are simply looking at fraud.
All we can expect from that is more spill-over into the lives of non-debtors, more "erroneous" credit damage poisoning credit files and clouding the data on which lending decisions are made, more defrauding of non-debtors who don't know their rights, and the growth of an out-of-control "industry" fueled by this money stream.
The net effect is economic destruction, not economic growth, as no real new value is being created.
The orginal creditors made poor choices in who they lent money to, just like the banks, brokers, and investors in the mortgage fiasco. Debt collection only marginally changes that economic cost, while irresponsibly shifting costs to other parties.
You cannot build a growing economy on the fantasy that all past debt is collectable. Case in point: Japan, still holding non-performing real estate debt on the books of their banks, and still wallowing in economic stagnation 2 decades after collapse of their real estate bubble undermined the collateral behind those loans.
This new batch of delinquent debt will just grow a bubble in the collection industry, eventually subject to collapse when the rules require revision once the growing damage to third parties is recognized.
Payday lenders were sprouting up around military bases like liquor stores in slums, and for much the same reason.
866-739-1300
I was tricked into giving them my Debit information right then and there or else I would have to go to court.. I wouldn't have done it had I read about all these complaints on AFG! This is the Santa Ana one.
Froze my account before money was collected.
Police told me that they "seemed" legit, and said to contact my bank for more information which I plan on doing.
Problem is, the police don't know much about debt collection laws, nor do they know much about consumer fraud, or how those committing fraud use the phone to do it. About all they check is whether they have a local business license, if that, as California stopped requiring debt collectors to be separately licensed and regulated years ago, resulting in this problem. These operations scatter their activity over the whole country, so a typical police department only gets sporadic complaints that they may assume is just "normal debt collection".
Using threats of going to court to demand payment, without notifying you of your legal dispute rights and allowing you to obtain proof of the debt, on their initial contact yet, is a violation of federal FDCPA on its face. It is a pattern of illegal collection that is increasingly resulting in consumers defrauded into paying alleged "debts" they don't even owe.
Contact FTC. They recently sued and shut down a bunch of debt collectors centered in Corona CA, not far from Santa Ana, engaged in the exact same tactic.
You might contact an attorney. One who recently sued the owners and managers of the Corona operation is Scott Harlow:
http://www.lawyer.com/scott-n-harlow-974542.html
What was your experience?
Like many southern California "collection agencies", they have numerous consumer complaints of running a fake "process server/lawsuit" shakedown racket.
Why don't you contact FTC, and ask them?
2321 E. 4th Street, Santa Ana, CA
by Ivine Blvd and North Tustin Ave?
http://www.theupsstorelocal.com/4965/The UPS Store
2321 E 4TH ST, STE C
SANTA ANA, CA 92705
Additional Information:
CORNER OF 4TH ST & TUSTIN AVE
Phone: Fax:
(714) 569-9200 (714) 569-9222
Email:
store4965@theupsstore.com
You might try contacting that UPS Store, or the City of Santa Ana business licensing department to see what their physical address is.
This also shows up:
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php ... 24374&v=Default
"...
STATE OF MAINE
BUREAU OF CONSUMER CREDIT PROTECTION
Docket # 2011-0141
In Re: AFG & Associates; 2321 E 4th St, Ste 449; Santa Ana, CA 92705
Cease and Desist Order
WHEREAS AFG & Associates a debt collection company located in Santa Ana, California was notified by the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection (“the Bureau”) by certified letter dated October 25, 2011 and signed for by a company representative on October 29, 2011 that the company is engaging in activities requiring licensing as a debt collector pursuant to 32 Maine Revised Statutes Annotated (M.R.S.A.), Chapter 111, §11031 et seq. of the Maine Fair Debt Collection Practices Act; and
WHEREAS the letter notified AFG & Associates that it must be licensed with the Bureau before attempting to collect debts from Maine consumers; and
WHEREAS AFG & Associates is not now nor has it ever been licensed as a debt collector in Maine; and.
WHEREAS AFG & Associates has contacted at least one Maine consumer (K.E.) and solicited the payment of $2,723.80, stating that she was being sued and that AFG & Associates was going to go after her home and her husband’s wages and that it would affect her credit for 10 years, in violation of 32 MRSA §11013(1) and (2); and
WHEREAS AFG & Associates has failed to respond to the Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection’s registered and accepted letter of October 25, 2011, or to become licensed a as a debt collector; and
WHEREAS unlicensed activity is subject to administrative and civil penalties pursuant to 32 M.R.S.A. §6181;
NOW THEREFORE, AFG & Associates is hereby notified and ORDERED to cease and desist all debt collection activity subject to licensing in the State of Maine, unless and until such time as a license is granted by the Administrator;
AFG & Associates is further ORDERED to immediately cease all collection activity involving Maine consumer K. E. and any other Maine consumers it is attempting to collect from; and
AFG & Associates is further ORDERED, within 45 days of the date of this Order, to provide the Bureau with a list of all Maine consumers from whom it is attempting to collect debts. The list shall include the full name, address and telephone number of each consumer, the total amount of all payments made by the consumer to AFG & Associates.
AFG & Associates, is further ORDERED to pay $1,000 to the Bureau within 30 days of the date of this Order as reimbursement for reasonable costs of investigation pursuant to 32 MRSA §6178(3).
AFG & Associates may request the scheduling of an administrative hearing on this order within 30 days of the date of this order by making that request in writing to the undersigned Superintendent, or may seek review of this order pursuant to Maine’s Administrative Procedures Act, 5 M.R.S.A. §11001 et seq.
Date: December 09, 2011 /s/William N. Lund
William N. Lund
Superintendent
Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection
..."