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
http://www.bobsspaceracers.com/whac-a-mole/whacamoles.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whac-A-Mole
Looks like there was a "Whack a Banker".
Maybe there's a market for a "Whack a collector".
Generically, Whac-A-Caller.
There is some suggestion that these more recently discovered LLC's will be added to the original lawsuit -- but it is also interesting to note that the Agent for Service of Process listed on these "newer" LLC's is none other than Sam Lockhart. So his involvement is questionable at best.
This newest batch of FTC filings also included photographs of the inside of the offices as they were raided - I recognized them by the distinctive currency wall paper - look like the same offices/wallpaper as the photographs in Vanessa/Jonny Deese's facebook albums.
Also interesting to note that the FTC found file folders in Begley/Lunsford personal offices during the raid that contained numerous complaints and lawsuits from consumers, BBB's and various state agencies about horribly abusive collection practices - clear evidence both have known from the beginning what was going on - and encouraged it.
The details of many of these consumer complaints are gut-wrenching. Many, many elderly, totally innocent people being terrorized for the supposed debts of children and grandchildren. In many cases, it's clear they had the completely wrong person but they just didn't care. I really can't see how any of them slept at night. Just evil, vile, and heartless.
Begley/Lunsford kept another folder of the lawsuits that had been filed against the LLC's - all of which I believe resulted in default judgments.
It's gonna be extremely difficult for Begley/Lunsford to claim these were the acts of rogue employees since the FTC just found so much evidence on sight at the time of the raid.
It wouldn't surprise me if very soon the receiver declares there's just no way the businesses can operate legally - and shuts it down completely. After all, the premise of the entire operation...all their employee instructional manuals....scripts, etc. all instructed that the first and foremost thing they were to do was to call the employer and pretend to be a process server on the pretext that a lawsuit had - or was going to be filed.
But because the debt they purchased was beyond the statute of limitations (and they knew it), they were in absolutely no legal position to file any kind of legal action against anyone to try to collect.
An interesting side note: a good number of the documents confiscated by the FTC were typed in a font that apparently types in all capital letters. Anyone think it's just a coincidence that a LOT of the shill comments posted over the last year on 800notes related to these llc's were typed in all capital letters? :-)
So I'm curious.....does anyone know where Begley/Lunsford learned "the trade"? Did they start out under the tutelage of someone else?
I also heard from a very reliable source that the US Postal service assisted in the raid -- which may mean the US Postal service will pursue a criminal action - based on the fact that they sent related documents through the US Mail. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Others have reported finding that inquiry on their credit reports.
Contact FTC.
Your second complaint is an "advance fee" loan scam.
They often use U.S. based addresses, which may be mail drops but might just be phony, to try to appear to be operating from the U.S., but are actually out of the country, as you found. Many are actually run from Canada (Montreal area), but they could be run from anywhere.
They make some excuse for requiring some "fee" or "insurance" up front, then often come back after you paid it, with another excuse for another "fee". You will NEVER get any loan.
They usually have you wire money, often by Western Union or MoneyGram, since you can't reverse the transfer due to fraud like you could if payment was by debit or credit card.
Although supposedly you wired money to "Spain", they could have picked it up anywhere in the world.
A recently created Hong Kong website just puts another layer of confusion in the path of identifying them. This type of scam typically changes names and numbers every few months, often using disposable cell phones, or VoIP.
The quality of English in their emails (see Complainsboard.com) suggests that English is their native language, which may point to Canada as their real location. Most reported advance fee loan fraud on this site appears to come from that source. Contact RCMP.
"Good faith" is just grifter talk for "gimme your money, cause I don't have any". See the old pidgeon drop or banker scams on Dragnet.
It was a total contradiction.....they had all these cutesy quotes incorporated into what was clearly meant to be motivational materials....things like don't be a Debby Downer. It also looks like they had pep rallies of sorts and were even getting ready to print motivational tee shirts.
And all the while they were encouraging and engaging in some of the most vile, abusive behavior you can image. Bizarre.
In addition, there was a complaint of receiving a deceptive fake court filing through the U.S. mail.
If they were receiving checks through the mail, or using their many mail drops for fraudulent purposes, the Postal Inspector would be involved.
Just curious...that's all.
And from what I can see, many aspects of those responses to state regulatory agencies constituted flat out lies. I don't know whether that would put the actual composer of the response letter in any criminal hot water or not.
Names kept multiplying, like a production line, but some fraction of them appeared to correspond to actual teams with at least line management, some in different locations.
What degree of control or ownership of the later operations was retained by the founders?
Calbar only shows a Paul StAmant, at:
http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Member/Detail/236141
8600 Utica Ave Ste 100
Rancho Cucamonga.
Website: http://www.stamantlaw.com/contact.asp
Paul calls his practice "Paul E. St. Amant, California Family and Criminal Law Attorney", NOT "Law Office of St. Amant".
Phone number does NOT match.
Shows locations in Fullerton, West Covina, Riverside, and San Bernardino.
NO location Temecula.
Riverside location makes plausible that the Corona Scam might be familiar with the name.
Is this "Law Office of St. Amant" real?
Address is just a Postal Annex mail drop.
30520 Rancho California Rd Ste 107-60,
Temecula, CA 92591
Google finds only a website:
www.stamantblog.com
(Another link goes to something on reachlocal.com)
Text has similar style to other Corona Scam wording, i.e. "resource management"
"The Law Office of St. Amant & Associates is a resource management company, committed to and specializing in recovering assets for enterprise class business."
Website structured similar to "filing services" new crop, with a minimal www.stamantblog.com site.
I know where I have seen that writing style:
www.countyfilingblog.com via Google cache:
"County Filing Services is a resource management company, committed to and specializing in recovering assets for enterprise class business and investors through a national attorney network."
Sure sounds like same author.
Looks like a "law firm" front, to match the "filing firm" front that claims to have a "national attorney network".
What exactly did the email say?
Anyway, Paul St Amant is licensed by the state bar and has a license for debt collection. Currently, no disciplinary actions have taken against him even after being taken to court for violations of the Fair Trade Protection Act.
My experience with them has been through a woman named Ashley Reed. She leaves messages from at least 4 different So. Cal. numbers. Has recently called my office seeking updated address info. She stated her office ( St Amant ) wanted to serve me!!. That alone is a clear violation of FTC regulations. Which state that a debt collector cannot imply, state anything other than Who they are, Who they're with, and What that they are seeking (employment, current address). So, I'm just keeping track of what their practices are. To possibly take actions against them later. I've got up to 1 year. Nice!!
I spoke to this Ashley at length, asking for a proper paper trail of this "debt," which she said she could send me, and now all i receive is a random letter with my debt charge and they couldn't bother to spell my name correctly. I respond to email stating that this is insufficient evidence and she refuses to email me back, just leaves voicemails and states i have to go to court to receive additional paperwork.
Although Paul shows up licensed with CalBar, that does not prove "St. Amont Assoc" is his company, nor does it prove they "litigate". Not sure what you mean by a "license for debt collection". California doesn't specifically require licensing of debt collectors, which is part of the problem. They might have an LLC or C corp. registered with the SOC or CA Dept. of Corporations, and they might have a business license in whatever city they are located, but none of those indicate any verification by city or state agencies that they are who or what they claim.
All the Corona scams claimed they "litigate" (called themselves "filing firm", etc.), and claimed they were calling "to serve papers". For a licensed attorney to play this game would be real dumb.
What you have is another shakedown script, tied to a name that FTC found in a Corona email discovered in one of their raids, still with no hard evidence of any real "litigation".