005-249-7347

Man with a thick accent called asking for Brian Wright. He was advised that it was an incorrect number. The person called back again. This time my husband told him again that the person does not live here. The person called back right after the call. He became very angry and aggressive on the phone. He started to swear called our house 5 more times. We just let the answering machine pick it up. Guy is obviously crazy!!!

I also got a call from this number this has got to be a scam do not give out in info about your self if you do not know whos this person is. The people who do this is scum.....

Phone call recvd. Mon. Jan. 3,2011 at 10:06 est from phone number 1-052-497-7347. Call starts out:"Matt or (Dad), this is Charles calling from the legal dept of ACS". he continues;" This is an effort of a processing company and the reason I am calling you is, I have a symptom of charges against your name and serious legal charges against your social security number"  the call ends with this admonishment: " Call me back to put yourself on the safer side", "Call me back at:347-416-726, that's 347-416-726.  Thank you and have a blessed day"

I noticed the male voice sounded very "nasal" which is why after replaying the message upteen times, I still couldn't decipher whether he was calling for "Matt" or "Dad".  Caller never asks for or states a last name.  The accent was very thick, sounded   African from Nigeria. It may have been Indian, but I don't think so.  Caller also used some odd termonology such as: " I have a symptom against your name" and call back :"to put yourself on the safer side".  The call-back number "Charles" gave twice makes no sense and he did not give a prefix or area code to dial.  The web site Ask.com, where I went to check out the mystery area code, advises that no such area code exists, even though it showed up on my caller I.D.  Ask.com further advises not to call the number or any number associated with the phone call.

This phone also showed up on my caller ID & they left a message. The guy has a heavy Pakistani or Indian accent. He stated that they are the Justice & Law Dept. & that they have filed charges against my name & social security number. He states his name is Adam & to call 347-547-3020 to correct the situation.
Looked the phone number & it's a cell phone number located in the Brooklyn, New York area.

These people called me last November 2010 stating that I owed $1500 for a Payday Loan. I told the guy that payday loans are illegal in Arizona & have been so since June 2010. So his supposedly payday loan is a bogus loan. I also told him that they are not officers of the law, even though their name implies that they are but when I look up information in the yellow/white pages in Brooklyn, & they don't exist. The guy promptly told me that they are US Marshals trying to collect on unpaid payday loans. I then started laughing & told the guy he was full of crap because I had also checked out the US Marshals have never heard of them either. He got very upset & nasty at this point in the conversation. He called me every cuss word in the English language. Which didn't upset me. When he was through I also informed him that he did not have my social security number. Which at this point he said I needed to tell him my SS number to confirm that this was my loan. Which I told Mr. Adam I wasn't giving him anything. Which of course that angered him again & started demanding that I give him my SS number.
I then asked to speak to his supervisor & he then hung up.

This phone is just another call in regards to pretty much the same thing. They are trying to intimidate, threaten & give orders to get a hold of peoples SS numbers, the bank acct numbers (which by the way he asked for that too) & to demand full payment.

I'm reporting these people to the FBI. I already reported them to the FTC(Federal Trade Commission) & obviously nothing was done. Since these people are willing to run their scam across state lines then they can deal with the Feds too.

Yep, these idiots will continue to harass people until the federal government actually does something about the abusive use of VoIP services, vhishing, etc.

For at least the last four years, possibly longer, a group has been calling former payday loan applicants advising them that they have defrauded a bank and are now being sued for non-payment of a loan.  The callers will claim to be calling on behalf of an attorney's office (name varies), the Dept. of Law and Investigation, ACS, the FBI, or other similar combinations below:

United Legal Processing Division
Midline Marketing
Crime Monitoring Services
Monetary Crime Division
U.S. National Bank
Attorney General’s Office
American Legal Services
Affidavit Consolidation Services (ACS)

You will be threatened with arrest, a costly trial and possibly worse.  In no shape, way or form can you be arrested for non-payment on a consumer debt.  Do not believe these threats, as they are without merit and cannot be carried out in the manner they allege.  

There are NUMEROUS consumer alerts out against this group of individuals:

Florida:
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/061107/met_176207561.shtml

Kansas:  
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/01/ks_debt_collection.html

Colorado:  
http://www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov/press/ ... lls_likely_orig

Rhode Island:  
http://www.collectionscreditrisk.com/news/rho ... -3002135-1.html

West Virginia:
http://www.wvago.gov/internetloanscam.cfm

Do not supply the callers with any additional information.  Inform them you have reported them to law enforcement and hang up.  If you haven't already, go ahead and report the calls to local law enforcement, your state's Attorney General and beyond.  Look up the local Secret Service branch's information in your area and get in contact with an agent there.  

If you ever applied for a cash advance online, your information is out there.  
Possible sources for the breach of your privacy are:

* The scammers obtained your information from Teletrack - a reporting agency used by many cash advance lenders to determine their risk lending to you.  The service is able to tell cash advance lenders if you have existing loans with other companies, for example.  Many state laws prohibit borrowers from having more than two cash advances out at the same time.

* The scammers created their own fake payday loan application site.  People looking for a cash advance went to the site and applied, thus freely providing the scammers with their information for malicious use at a later time.  

* The scammers were able to get into the database(s) of cash advance lenders - probable targets being Sonic Payday and Cashnet USA.  


How to protect yourself:

* Inform your employer.  You are likely getting calls at home and/or at work, so make sure your employer is aware the calls are part of a scam and to not take them seriously.  Advise the callers that they are no longer allowed to call you at work.  If they continue to call, document the date and time of the calls you received.  Save voice mails left if at all possible.  

* Change your number(s).  For some this may not be an option, for others a one-time number change can be done free of charge.

Be advised - any references you listed on your payday loan application will be contacted.  Let those people know that this is a scam, and they can disregard.

* Use Google Voice.  Google Voice is a great replacement voice mail system for just about any phone number you use.  Messages can be transcribed and voice mail recordings can be saved as mp3 files.  

Pro Tip - call the scammers with a Google Voice number before turning off your old phone numbers.  Make sure when you call you identify yourself so they can start up their script.  At any point after they have your information pulled up just hang up.  They will then start religiously calling your Google Voice number.  At this point, you are free to change your regular phone number(s) and enjoy not having these people ever call you again.  (And laugh at the fact these people are basically talking to a brick wall several times a day)

The scammers change their numbers frequently.  Law enforcement used to think it was because the callers ran out of minutes on their prepaid wireless accounts or they were shuttered due to fraud, but now they understand it's simply to evade detection by savvy consumers online.  With the proliferation of VoIP, it's even easier for the crooks to stay a couple of steps ahead of law enforcement.  Below is just a sampling of the 30+ numbers that have been used in recent memory.

000-078-6786
005-249-7347
1-201-244-7722
1-209-349-7382
1-209-797-2212
1-212-500-0839
1-213-256-0408
1-213-995-3039
1-281-763-0433
1-347-289-3902
1-347-844-6817
1-347-844-6831
1-424-354-4270
1-516-232-8905
1-516-232-8935
1-518-212-0219
1-561-300-8018
1-561-210-4185
1-626-200-4646
1-631-456-4041
1-646-274-1143
1-646-810-8635
1-650-241-4604
1-707-401-4056
1-707-633-2789
1-708-401-0535
1-716-442-2824
1-717-862-4080
1-718-705-8669
1-760-514-0132
1-760-563-5384
1-772-318-4938
1-850-201-1111
1-858-777-1977
1-859-908-2281
1-866-860-4509
1-877-226-7488
1-888-706-7463
1-888-771-9249
1-888-785-4479
1-909-327-4870

Go ahead, ask them for proof you owe the debt - more commonly known as verification of debt.  See what they say.  A phone authorization carries very little weight, so if they have something signed by you on file, you are done for - and the callers know that.  That authorization is the only thing these callers are doing by the book, and for good reason.  If they just went all willy nilly and made an ACH debit from your checking account, without your written approval, you could in turn report the transaction as fraudulent to your financial institution.  In about 7-10 business days, you would get the funds returned to your account.  Then the scammers would be up against a bank and their team of lawyers and investigators.  

Bottom line:

If you haven't paid the callers a dime, don't.  If you planned on paying them to shut them up, just don't.  Remember - you are not being contacted by a legally licensed, ethically owned and operated collector.  Read up on the FDCPA - http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf - and know your rights.

https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-646-274-1143/3