Complaint

+1
Debra M. Persiano
Country: United States
I got a call today at home from a man stating he was a process server for Collin County DA's Office and he is with the Sheriff's office and needed to come serve a warrant on me.  I was shocked and asked why?  He stated do you live ....are you still at this address are you now at this address and I stated who are you?  He again, stated he was from the county going to serve court papers on me today. He gave me a toll free number for what he stated was the county's office which is 1 866.872.6116 gave me a case no. which he called a Cause No. 008307-TX. I called the number was transferred to a Mr. Fisher's office who stated that law suite in the amount of $6,214.24 was filed in Collin Co., Tx and that warrant was out for me.  He then after back and forth said let me get more information from my secretary and state this was for an outstanding debt in from Capital One a credit card that I obtained several years back and had disputes over interest charges etc.  He stated that if I did not want to go to court or jail that I could pay $1,951.00 in full by end of business today and this matter could be cleared up.  I explained that I recently lost my job etc.  Anyway, he stated that I needed to call him back by EOB today or they will serve the papers.  Ok, so that was a heads up for me.  I called the DA's office nothing is filed on me as of today, after searching PMG it is clear that they do not practice best practices for collections and have been in trouble for this before back in 2004.  I need someone to give me advise. I want to pay off my debt, I don't want this type of collections to continue this upset me, made my blood pressure raise, this type of collections are not the right thing to do.  Had they called and ask to make arrangements or give me an opportunity to clear the matter, rather then threaten me by taken legal action, or harassment stating they are sending a sheriff over today.  This is wrong, bad business, and should not continue this company is bad news.

Comments

  • 0
    tj
    "It seems that I have a DEBT that was maybe sold to one of these companies."

    More likely, they just pulled your credit report, found your old account, and are now claiming you owe it to them.  It's much cheaper to fake it than to actually buy old debt.


    "Somehow a $200 balance has grown to over $6000 by their calculations.   It seems reasonable that $200 can be $6000 in less than 4 years."

    How do you get that?   That's 30X in 4 years, or 134% APR.

    "Anyways, I asked them to send me some information to verify that the debt/contract has been assigned to them, which they can't do."

    They never send anything but maybe a "settlement offer".  Never any validation from an original creditor.  Moreover, some consumers have reported that on checking with the original creditor, they have found that creditor STILL OWNED THE ACCOUNT AND HAD NOT SOLD IT.  That says they are faking.


    "They also don't like sending things via the US MAIL, probably because of federal postal laws."

    It's called mail fraud.  They have had several postal money orders reversed due to fraud as well.


    "At this point it's just a PAIN dealing with them,"

    Then why deal with them?  It won't get any real debt removed from your credit report, nor will it settle any real debt with the actual owner of it.


    "it's making it very hard to actually clear up the DEBT."

    Paying them won't clear up anything.  This is a fraud.


    "At this point I actually enjoy dealing with them because I find their tactics humorous, "

    You need to get out more, be around people.


    "I don't however enjoy them bothering and harassing family members over this."

    It's illegal, but that is what they do.  You pay them, you are basically paying them to stop harassing you, no other reason.  Extortion, plain and simple.


    "I acknowledge that I probably OWE the money"

    That is why they targetted you, since they found this account on your own credit report, but that doesn't mean you owe it to them.  If you pay them, it isn't going to whoever you do owe.  You want to pay everyone who calls you up and threatens you, lots of people will start calling.
  • 0
    tj
    A number of the Corona Scam fronts have CA SOS registered LLCs and city business licenses.

    California doesn't require separate licensing of debt collectors, even though it has state laws that apply to them.

    One or more of the Corona Scam fronts have been sent cease and desist orders by the Texas AG, due to not being bonded and licensed in that state.  In addition, another front LLC, Global AG, apparently lost a $10 Million lawsuit in West Virginia, before deciding to "evaporate".  

    They don't care.  They can always make more names.

    They make threats to sue, and even claim they have sued (calling to "serve papers"), but they never intend to sue, so they could care less about whether they can provide an assignment of debt.  

    It's all based on threats and deception.
    It's a con.
  • 0
    tj
    Another possible real name:  
    Todd Loop, allegedly calling himself "David White" with "County Filing Services".

    https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-416-8110/3
  • 0
    Damning411
    If you give me a personal contact number, I can provide you with some useful information.
  • 0
    Hasmetthesecreeps
    Douglas Burgess is a Jason Begly sort - only from Buffalo NY rather than Corona CA.

    It's astounding what these wahoos get away with all this because the public perception of this is, "Well, if someone is after you, you must've asked for it."  There is an underlying animosity aimed at anyone with financial trouble and those who are perceived as having financial trouble whether they actually have them or not.  That's the only way that I can explain how it is that such offenses on the part of these criminals can be tolerated.

    In my particular case, these standard bearers of financial virtue and integrity couldn't wait to get at the prize:  I don't remember exactly how long it took, a week, two, when the legal notice of my judgement (it was a default judgement - the crook, although he took the summons, failed to show up in court) was posted in our local Sunday newspaper.  I picked up the paper that morning at, oh, sometime around 8 am, give or take, and the phone was ringing by noon, debt collectors who operated in my area, all offering to buy the judgement despite my disclosure that the bums had fallen off the map, all claiming some 'special knowledge' which they wouldn't share with me, of course, about where to find these criminals.  First thing the next morning(sometime after 10 am), the 'winner' came to my house to hand deliver a Citibank counter check for the judgement.  Freakin' cannibals...It's ironic that the MO of these types is to try to make the victim feel, somehow, guilty, when between the two, the debt collector and the victim, the only criminal is the debt collector.  It's all amount money.  Never let them try to tell you otherwise.
  • 0
    tj
    Buffalo has a long history of this.  Apparently they specialized in fraudulent telemarketing, scamming retired seniors in Florida and elsewhere out of their savings for phony "investments", up to the mid-1990s, when the FBI ran a major operation against them.

    At that time, it appears they switched to "debt collection" as a safer business, often collecting these nebulous fake "debts".  There are some scammy "magazine subscription telemarketer"/fake "debt collector" scams located there as well, mainly conning kids in their 20s into paying "cancellation fees" to get out of faked "verbal contracts".

    The NY AG crackdown a couple years ago was enlightening, following the Dateline investigation of the "Maryland police detectives" that turned out to be Boyland's operation in Buffalo.  Then there was the "sewer service" case against a NY process serving company.  

    There was a recent case of selling account data out the back door of a skip-trace subcontractor to another debt collector, who would then collect on the same debt again, even though they had never even bought the debt and it might have already been paid.  They were centered in Buffalo as well.  One Las Vegas debt collector showed up with similar complaints starting a couple years ago, but the principals traced back to Buffalo.

    From your experience it sounds like the debt collection insiders know what is going on, and who is doing it.
  • 0
    Hasmetthesecreeps
    Yep - same guy.  I didn't get any money taken.  When they started calling me, I ignored them initially.  I figured this had to be some sort of joke.  But the phone calls continued and were increasingly threatening.  My roommates were getting disturbed.  I went through all of my old financial documents and found the Chapter 7 discharge and, with the thing in my hands, called these criminals back.  I got their fax number and faxed them a copy of the discharge and never heard from them again.  Ultimately, I know who sold this unsellable debt in the first place - the original creditor.  But, I tried to get something from this person with Burgess' office to tell me who, exactly had sold it to them - another agency? the original creditor, perhaps thinking that I would've 'forgotten' about my bankruptcy?  That last one is pretty funny...how does one get a bankruptcy and then forget that they have one?!  But, I got absolutely no information from them.  I followed this up with several complaints to (then) NY AG Eliot Spitzer.  NYAG got back to me shortly after I filed complaints and requested a statement.  It seems that there were a lot of complaints against this outfit.  I later heard - several months, but not an entire year, that Burgess law office had been shut down.  By 2007, however, it was reopened by Jason Evans, another sleaze ball.  I (successfully)sued the idiots who bought that debt from them.
  • 0
    Cricket
    I just received a call from a man from this number 832-800-0924. He said he was going to serve papers on my son and needed to know if someone would be available to accept them. I thought he was serving papers for a unpaid ticket. I asked him if this was the case. He said he would hold off for 1 hour and i should call 877-329-3448 and include a case number he provided. Also said when I called to have my son's S.S# and any other info I might be able to provide. Something didn't feel right. So I went online, typed in 877 number and realized number was associated with collection agency/debt collector under lots of aliases and tons of complaints.

    So i called 877 number and another guy answers the phone "Asset Filing Services", I proceed to tell him I don't like people calling my home misrepresenting themselves and told him not to call back. He got angry and we got into heated argument. I told him I would report him to donotcall.gov and hung up. He continued to call me (3) more times but I didn't answer. Why hasn't FBI stepped up investigation on this company with so many aliases? I work with credit all day long and know about debt collectors. They use any tactic to intimidate, frighten and bully.
  • 0
    tj
    Your son has now been targetted by the Corona Scam.  They operate under more than 50 names, generally using mail drops in and around the city of Corona CA.  

    "Asset Filing Services" is pretty typical of a Corona Scam name.  They like to use the words "Filing Services" in their names, to imply they "sue" or are "process servers" while being careful to not say that.

    Similar complaints:
    https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-877-329-3448

    Here are their sham websites.  They have many similar ones under their various names, trying to appear "real".
    http://www.assetfilingblog.com/237920/2011/09 ... of-control.html
    http://www.assetfiling.net/

    Here is an overview of their latest "crop" of scam fronts:
    http://getoutofdebt.org/29403/fake-process-se ... ut-of-consumers


    They play this fake "process server" act, usually calling relatives to make their implied threats of a lawsuit.  They couldn't actually be so bad at locating people to call relatives by "mistake".  It is all part of the act, an attempt to threaten, intimidate, embarass, and panic the intended victim, so they call back and pay a "settlement" without any proof the "debt" is owed.

    You and your son now know you have been targetted by this criminal fraud ring.  He should check his credit reports, particularly Experian.  He will probably find a recent inquiry, possibly under another name, indicating that this scam had access to his credit report.  They can use this information to fake a "debt" that sounds like some old account you might think you "owe".

    You are dealing with sociopathic grifters, who have set up this scheme to grow while evading prosecution.  You cannot believe ANYTHING they say.

    Why don't you call the Riverside FBI and ask them why they are letting this racket grow in their own backyard?

    Then call FTC.  There are reports they are being investigated.
  • 0
    nmb
    I had these same people calling my mother and threatening her about some paper's that they wanted to serve on me and also kept harassing her about my mother being me.  I am very upset because my mother has a severely bad heart and they are calling her and harassing her like they knew her and then where was the respect for their business they were harassing me about my son was abandon and hadn't eaten in 7 days.  This is not right and these folks that are doing this really need to take in consideration that they are doing things that can cause people to have a heart attack.
  • 0
    tj
    Fourth independent confirmation consistent with active FTC investigation.

    Indicator is FTC knowledge and warning of characteristic Corona Scam MO, using credit report to get information to fake a debt.

    https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/8888839029/2
    "...
    i spoke with the FTC and they believe it is a scam,  i was told they will run a credit check on you and look for late or outstanding debt and therefore appear to be a collection agency,
    ..."
  • 0
    tj
    Summary:

    Four total reports consistent with an active FTC investigation.

    Two reports consistent with FTC confirming consumer complaints.
    Two reports consistent with FTC investigating a "cluster".
    One report consistent with FTC aware of or investigating scam use of credit reports.
  • 0
    tj
    There are reports that FTC is investigating this fraudulent debt collection racket.

    Contact FTC.
  • 0
    tj
  • 0
    Previous Bill Collector
    I received a phone call from your agency or firm today. Too bad I know what I am talking about when I say I am going to sue the [***] out of your company. Your representative told me law suit had already been filed (called courts and verified this is not true) and even gave me a court date. The address your representative provided it located at a shopping mall. I have contact 5 different stores also located in that shopping mall and verified that unless you are running your business out of the janitors office this information was also fraudlent. So, explain how your firm or agency is not a fraud.It is unfortunate for your company that you didn't contact some naive consumer who knows nothing about the FDCPA and various states' collection laws.
  • 0
    PL
    Yes this company keeps calling a relative. I called them to confirm the debt of which they fail to verify they want you to confirm SSN# and date of birth, like I am that stupid to give it to them. So I told them I am on to them and I already filed a report with the FTC, BBB, and the attorney General. This company is not registered to conduct business in California after I told them I have report them and asked for their address to send a cease communication letter they refused to give me their mailing address and requested I stop calling their company. They messed with the wrong cookie, with online research I found this companies partners already have been charged with 7 felony counts. The threaten that they have all calls recorded good luck using a recording in a court of law these people need to get a life and stop scamming people. They will be caught and when they do they are the ones that will pay will jail time =)

    My whole thing is why did they call me numerous times requesting I no longer call them and that my case has been closed. Only because this is a prove of guilt that they are running a scam.

    There address is

    Worldwide Filing Services
    1240 E. Ontario Avenue
    Suite 102-175
    Corona, CA 92881

    send a cease communication letter and if they continue to bother you have a bigger case for them to be tried in a court of law with additional felony crimes
  • 0
    tj
    What do you know about the felony charges?
  • 0
    tj
    "Worldwide Filing Services" is another Corona Scam front, part of the new crop.

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