Scam to con me out of supposed money owed for Payday Loan
Complaint
Robert Nuey
Country: United States
I have been contacted by a supposed law firm in California by the name of ACS. They claim that I have three major charges in a law suit pending unless I pay an amount in the area of $533.87 right away. I smelled a scam right away.. besides the fact of them not wanting to disclose detailed info also made this whole thing smell bad. What can be done to prevent this and to put a stop to these people?
Comments
https://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/UsqjRBy2RACK1AjNMuiSwg
Just another criminal phone extortion racket, playing "debt collector" to steal money for phony "payday loans".
Most likely they are calling from India or Pakistan, not California.
"They claim that I have three major charges in a law suit pending unless I pay an amount in the area of $533.87 right away. I smelled a scam right away.. besides the fact of them not wanting to disclose detailed info also made this whole thing smell bad"
You are correct. The threats are illegal since they will not, cannot, and have no way to carry them out. They make them to panic people into paying without checking anything out, like whether the "debt" is valid or owed, or looking them up, like you did.
Unfortunately, that will probably not do much good with these overseas extortion rackets.
What they think happened was some call center with a lot of Americans' information secretly sold name lists to these criminals. They keep calling me, but as soon as I get them off the script they usually just hang up and leave me alone for a while. Regrettably, they still call back. Now I just have fun with them, which pisses them off no end, but the longest any call has been is like 2 minutes before they hang up.
They have to get the money sent to them somehow, and often that is by Western Union or Moneygram.
Both Western Union and Moneygram have consumer warnings about various scams that use their services.
Those warnings are out of date, and make no mention of these fake "debt collection" rackets.
It would put a crimp in their operation if Western Union and Moneygram had prominent warnings against these extortion rackets.
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-877-882-5684
This is a scam. They use threats to con people out of money that you may or may not owe. They don't like being asked questions about their company (fake company), they can't give any information or provide documents about the so called bad debt owed. They tend to change their MO. Sometimes it's about payday loans or debts. About a year ago they were calling people telling them they were in a criminal suit and had a restraining order issued on them. This needs to stop. If they call, question them about their company. Record the conversations if you can and tell them they are being recorded. Tell them you are reporting them to the FTC, BBB, police, attorney general, FBI...and do it. The more complaints, the better chance we have of catching these morons. Here is some information that may help you:
* They call from various 877, 866, 800 numbers and U.S numbers in various states. Sometimes the number will come in as 000-000-0000.
* They may or may not have a middle eastern accent. They recently caught on that people weren't buying that someone named John Smith has a middle eastern accent, so they do have American accented people doing this now.
* They will use phrases such as: Breach of contract, fraud, defrauding a financial institution, Internet fraud, payday loan fraud, etc.
* They will threaten that you will receive one or all of the following: court summons, failure to appear, email from the company, etc.
* They will threaten you with: jail time, losing your job, notifying your employer/family or both, coming to your house at night, physically hurting you and I have even found threads where the male callers have threatened females with coming over to rape them.
* They use very common last names such as: Cooper, Anderson, Smith, Taylor, Logan, etc. Usually common first names too.
* They will not give you any information about the company. They will tell you it's private information or that their fax is broken, etc.
* They will tell you that you can only pay with a credit, debit or prepaid card. They will not accept any other form of payment.
* They will tell you that you are a loser, immature, cuss at you, call you stupid, call you horrible names, etc.
Whatever you do DO NOT GIVE THESE SCUMBAGS ANY INFORMATION. Do not verify any of your information. Tell them they are a scam and law enforcement is working on tracking them down. Tell them you are recording them. Call them back and question them. Be sure to protect your credit because they have most of your personal information. Put a fraud alert on your credit file with all three credit bureaus. Report them to as many agencies as you can. And if you have ANY helpful information to add to this that will help catch these fools, please add it to this site. I am furious and ready to take these people down.
They are criminals running a scam, trying to extort and con people.
The "debt" is fake, and the only thing you will get from paying it is poorer. You might even get more threatening calls, since you are now an easy mark.
A lady in West Virginia got a $10 Million judgement against one of these scams (one based in the U.S., in southern California) that pretended to be the local sheriff, even faking caller id, and she has been hunting them down. She is VERY determined.