Harassment
Complaint
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
Yet several times complaints reported that on contacting the Riverside FBI office, they said they were not interested.
Were those shills?
Was the FBI just holding its cards close to the vest?
Or was the investigation run primarily from the FTC side, only bringing in the FBI at the end?
Wonder if they are tracking assets.
Freezing bank accounts should be visible to about-to-be ex-employees.
There was no gray line that was walked over here....it was evil greed pure and simple. The line was very clear and the people involved eagerly stomped over that line every single day.
The employees at this company were/are nothing short of domestic terrorists.
And apparently even if there wasn't debt, it would keep growing. You call up someone and make threats demanding money, you're a thug. But call yourself a "debt collector", even when you have no real debt, and it's now OK, just a "civil violation of FDCPA". No wonder the Buffalo mob moved from scamming Florida retirees to debt collection. It's much safer.
There appears to be a long history of similar scam debt collectors in the LA area, tracing back to D.C. Brown. Their key survival trait appears to be that they knew when to back off and lie low, something the Corona Scam failed to value. Based on adding of new front names, it appears to have been just grow, grow, grow, and count on the new names and shell LLCs to protect you.
"Wayne Swanson" showed up in the early Corona complaints, connected to PMG via BBB reports that mentioned that name as a contact. PMG in turn connects to the Corona Scam cluster via the root Wyoming LLC registration filings, all of which appear to have occurred on 06/29/2009, which points to a common instigator.
Not clear about CMA. It appears to be connected to alias "David Noble", formerly connected by consumer complaints to D.C. Brown. Other similarities in complaints suggest a stronger connection to the Corona cluster, possibly through trading "information" or outsourcing jobs.
It sounds like you are familiar with the players in the area.
Do you have any details on Wayne Swanson, or CMA?
What made this culture so prevalent in this particular area?
Who started it?
Pretty typical for the time it takes for complaints to result in a major FTC lawsuit. CAMCO was similar, to the first fine, a little shorter to the point of shutdown and receivership.
They sure look like they're having fun......
Doesn't sound like there is any way to be "half legit", although it takes more time to collect evidence to prosecute.
You are either in it, with all the rewards and risk, or you're not, with less reward but less risk. Kind of like drug addiction.
Or is there some "full service" sham business fabricator they all use?
I connect dots.
Following a trail that others have deliberately tried to hide requires considering possibilities that may as yet have no evidence, if only to look for that evidence.
So how big is it? $5 Million a year? $10 Million?
Used to be, you could call up anyone you wanted, say anything you wanted, and keep doing it until you got money out of them. You could even pull their credit reports, and use that in the con, as long as you called yourself a "debt collector". It was like a private club, and the legits covered for the shady ones, just to protect the game.
The balance has now tipped. They track you like a wolf pack, compare notes, and warn others. Where ever you show up, they find you with Google. Eventually, they piece it all together, find out who you are, and the complaints flood in to FTC.
Welcome to the new world order.
Or if you want to stay with the old world order, move to India.
(If you want to know the technique, go the the CIA site, and look up ACH. It's basic tradecraft for intelligence analysts.)
The hypotheses on the table are:
1) This is a scam, the debts are fake, the threats are used to support the deception, etc.
2) This is legit, the debts are real, the threats are just "a little excessive", etc.
I start scoring evidence as reported by consumer complaints, and get repeated counts undermining (2), and supporting (1).
I get 2 or 3 pointing one way or the other, and from experience, I know I have a trail. People act according to their habits. They do what works for them, legal or not, and keep doing it. The evidence piles up, and the balance shifts beyond a reasonable doubt.
Here I get 10, 15 counts, repeated hundreds of times, once all the names are reconnected into the cluster. And it appears the perpetrators knew this was a risk, or why else would they have created over 60 names to operate under? Hiding means there is something to hide.
It would take extreme stupidity for a legitimate debt collector to use such illegal tactics, and expect to get away with them. They would be sued into unprofitability in a couple years, with injunctions and consent agreements hanging over them, like some loaded gun pointed at their bank accounts. (Look at how tame NCO has become, lately.) That, combined with the extreme efforts undertaken to hide and evade lawsuits and prosecution, and I cannot reach any other conclusion.
Everything says "fraud". The only extreme stupidity is thinking you can get away with it forever. But these aren't "rocket scientists".
You can whine all you want but the fact is, your "krew" had no right to terrorize innocent people who didn't owe anyone a DIME.
You are a domestic terrorist....and deserve prison time like other domestic terrorists.
There are LOTS of us out here who are THANKFUL for the tj's of the world.
FDCPA is written to allow FTC to choose what case is easiest for them to make. As long as only FTC is involved, this will remain just a civil case. Things get different if DOJ gets involved, as then you are dealing with criminal prosecution.
As for collecting on debt they "own", they would have to be idiots to actually buy debt and then use threats of "arrest" and impersonating law enforcement and court officials. The $10 Million judgement arose from such impersonations, including apparently "911" spoofing of caller id.
And no, I am not "Bud Hibbs".