Are you receiving harassing phone calls from alleged “debt collectors”? Never took out a Payday loan? They’ve threatened saying there is a warrant out for your arrest? If you’ve answered YES to any of these questions please read on. The FBI released the following information and we wanted to share it with our readers.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center continues to receive complaints from victims of payday loan telephone collection scams. As previously reported in December 2010, the typical payday loan scam involves a caller who claims the victim is delinquent on a payday loan and must make payment to avoid legal consequences.
Callers pose as representatives of the FBI, “Federal Legislative Department,” various law firms, or other legitimate-sounding agencies and claim to be collecting debts for companies such as United Cash Advance, U.S. Cash Advance, U.S. Cash Net, or other Internet check-cashing services. The fraudsters relentlessly call the victim’s home, cell phone, and place of employment in attempts to obtain payment. The callers refuse to provide information regarding the alleged payday loan or any documentation and become verbally abusive when questioned.
The IC3 has observed variations of this scam in which the caller tells the victim that there are outstanding warrants for the victim’s arrest. The caller claims that the basis of the warrants is non-payment of the underlying loan and/or hacking. If it’s the latter, the caller tells the victim that he or she is wanted for hacking into a business’ computer system to steal customer information. The caller will then demand payment via debit/credit card; in other cases, the caller further instructs victims to obtain a prepaid card to cover the payment.
The high-pressure collection tactics used by the fraudsters have also evolved. In one recent complaint, a person posed as a process server and appeared at the victim’s job. In another instance, a phony process server came to a victim’s home. In both cases, after claiming to be serving a court summons, the alleged process server said the victim could avoid going to court if he or she provided a debit card number for repayment of the loan.
If you are contacted by someone who is trying to collect a debt that you do not owe, you should:
* Contact your local law enforcement agencies if you feel you are in immediate danger;
* Contact your bank(s) and credit card companies;
* Contact the three major credit bureaus and request an alert be put on your file;
* If you have received a legitimate loan and want to verify that you do not have any outstanding obligation, contact the loan company directly;
* File a complaint at www.IC3.gov.
*File a complaint here at Scambook.
Always remember, NEVER give your Social Security number—or personal information of any kind—over the telephone or online unless you initiate the contact.
See Also
FBI Says: Watch out Grandparents and Grandchildren, Someone is Out to Get You!
Telemarketing Scam?
Fake FBI Scam
pay day loans dot net – called me and said they were going to have someone at my door in the next 45 minutes with a check. I said I don’t need a loan. He kept going on and on and on. Iran accent. I said no, he said you are WASTING MY TIME? I said yes, you don’t listen, I don’t need a loan. He said someone will be at my door in 45 min. I said I will throw acid in their face then. He said I know where you live, You want to Fuck with me? and repeated this over and over to me. I hung up.
well a john guy called me last week and asked for my attorney’s name and number and when I asked for what he said that I had been contacted earlier the past week and wanted to know what we were going to do about it… I said I had no idea what they were talking about and he said he’d explain it all to me… as he started to explain I said it sounds like a scam to me and he got very mad and said tell that to the police when they came to my door within the next hour to arrest me that it is a scam… nothing after that but he sounded very foreigh,.. they tried the same thing on my daughter who only takes out pay day loans locally never on the internet… so she knew they were scammers… this whole bunch of scammers are a joke by now but they try to intimidate people and I wish they would all get caught and go to jail… but there is always someone to take up a new scam…
The above Website has supposedly hired me over the internet. I can’t find any listing of their company’s bio information here in the United States. It sound as if they are scam marketers.
My husband got a few calls like this last month, first from “Nicole Jones” claiming to be a local process server and saying he was being faced with several charges. Then later by the supposed attorney “Sophia White” who had the exact same voice as Nicole Jones. They said he owed money on some loan which he never took out and refused to give him any information about their company. He told her he knew it was a scam and she got pissed, telling him she’d see him in court, etc. We heard from her one time since then (asking for the number of the police report my husband said he was going to file), but haven’t heard from her since. No Indian accent though, unlike all of the other reports I’ve read about.