That there gonna embarass me in front of everyone in my work and arrest me cause I didnt go to court
Complaint
Julie
Country: United States
I need to pay a 100$ every two weeks and since I agreed then they said theyll file a report against me and take me to jail
Comments
Is it illegal for them to discuss my debt with others?
Thanks.
That's what these shakedown rackets do.
How do you know you even owe them?
If they are looking for someone with your maiden name, they may even have you confused with someone else. They don't care, they paw through Accurint, search on names anywhere, then find their relative, (grandmothers are great, cause half the time they will just pay it off themselves), then use the threat and pressure of embarassment to extort payment even when they have the wrong person. Harass relatives, harass coworkers, and not a shred of documentation anywhere in site.
It is what it looks like.
It's a shakedown con.
File complaints with FTC, your state Attorney General, and the New York Attorney General.
NY AG has been shutting several of these scams down every year.
The emailed "settlement offer" or even emailed "validation letter" has no significance at all, other than being deceptive. It routinely shows up in the scripts of both Buffalo shakedown scams, as well as similar southern California scams like the Corona Scam.
Nothing they send by email is any substitute for validation (proof) obtained directly from the original creditor and sent to you by US Mail.
FDCPA requires that within 5 days of first contact, they MUST send you a letter notifying you of the alleged debt, and of your right to dispute it and request verification (proof) that you owe it. Fail to send that letter, which would tip you off to what the law REALLY requires them to send, and they have violated FDCPA. You could sue them for violations, if they didn't skip town first.
Multiple violations and deceptive statements:
1) deceptively diverting you to believe that some email is proof you owe them.
2) threatening to sue if you don't pay them. If they could really sue, these shakedowns wouldn't be making so many illegal threats.
3) "5 days to settle" all to create "urgency" so you don't demand proof first. The "5 days" bit even plays on the FDCPA "g" letter requirement. See, forget about your rights, or the law, you better settle BEFORE you could even get any letter, or they will "sue", And if you "settle" (pay a shakedown), then they don't have to send any letter, How clever!
4) Courts can't move that fast. They have to file suit, IN YOUR LOCAL COURTHOUSE, NOT THEIRS, then they have to serve you a summons, then you can get an attorney to defend yourself, or even to sue them back.
5) They can't "garnish your wages" without first suing and winning a judgement. It's not just somehow magically automatic, like they just do it, but that's how they pretend it works.
6) "Very respectful" while lying her ass off, is just pretending to be "professional" to support the "seriousness" of this "lawsuit" that doesn't exist. It's an act.
7) You are right to be suspicious. There is a lot of this going around.
Let's see, that's a Deception score of +7. Pretty scammy.
If they are liars and cheats, what exactly can you trust? Nothing.
So what is this alleged "debt"?
Some old "payday loan"?
Some old "credit card"?
How old? 3, 4 years, or is it REALLY OLD, 7 to 8 years, past SOL, past reporting on your credit reports, and you don't even have any records and can't find it on your credit reports, but it sounds kind of familiar but you thought it was paid. But "YOU REALLY OWE THIS AND WE ARE SUING". Yeah, right...
Does it just sound like an old payday loan, with no proof of anything?
Is it even an illegal payday loan, lent at usurous rates by an illegal unlicensed overseas lender through the internet, where because they were never licensed to lend in your state, they can't sue, and can't collect more than just the principal?
If they are lying left and right, we must assume they are lying about the most important part, the alleged "debt", that it's "owed", or its amount. In the collection scam business they even have a name for it: "spiff money", just make it up or add it on and if you collect it, you split it with the "company" like some "bonus". Totally illegal.
Up till now, the ACH system assumed that all charges were between persons or entities that had ongoing payments, and employed less fraud tracking than, say, the credit and debit card systems. If, as is likely, New York's enforcement of New York payday lending prohibitiions forces ACH loan payment tracking, the information will be available for other states that also prohibit such lendinig to cut off the money flow to illegal lenders.
Address:
Main Place Tower, Suite 300A
350 Main Street
Buffalo, New York 14202
Phone Number: (716)853-8400
Consumer Frauds Number: (716)853-8404
Fax Number: (716)853-8571
Office hours 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m, Monday through Friday
Current Attorney Staff : Michael J. Russo: Assistant Attorney General In-Charge