310-388-6342

This person is calling people at home and at their place of employment, claiming that they are with the Attorney General's Office in Los Angeles, California.
I talked with the LA Attorney's General's Office and they said that this is a scam.
They said please do not give any information about yourself to any one over the phone and that the Government would never call you at home inquiring about collecting on any bills or asking for monetary funds.  They also said to hang up when you receive a call like this.

Getting calls at work, on cell, at home ....who are these people ????

These people have threatened my family, to sue me, to take money from my account.
They call night and day. Screaming explicit things such as suck my d***. And I'm a [***].

i just same are [***] 310_388_6342

I also got this message when I asked them for there address they didn't know what to say then they said Los Angeles and San Francisco and u can hear a bunch of middle Easterns yapping away ugh this needs to stop =(

these people are a total scam they tell your last four digits of your social to try to scare so not cool ...they get your number online... they ask for ur lawyers number so they just can have someone else to harrass

wow these people called me again today and said that i had to pay 564 dollars by 1 p.m. or that i will get arrested on monday then he went on to saying that he just wanted to be my friend and that he likes ladies like me and that he was going to call back in an hour because he was going to go to lunch and he even offered me to go to lunch with him... ugh how can we make this stop someone please help he also called my place of employment , he called back 7 times but i didnt answer the first time they called the #911 came out on the caller id

We got the same thing!! Scared the Crap out of us! But we called the Attorney General and they said this is a huge scam going on. I feel so bad for the people who are falling for it. I called him back and went off on him! I say we flood him with calls and scare him to death!!

I was threatened when I told the called that the person he was asking for, was no longer an employee of our company. I could hardly understand him, Indian, of course.  I will not answer his calls in the future.

Just got a call from this person.  Told him I didn't work  here.  What is this all about?

People call your local police department and make a report. They have to follow up with the L.A. Police. The more reports the better we have of getting these people to stop. Good luck. I am doing my part now

Kevin Matthews called me on friday saying I need to pay $5448.00 before 1:00pm to avoid being arrested and having my banking account and drivers license blacklisted. Also told me that I would lose my job and everything I have. He would never tell me what the money is for because he said they tried delivering something to my house but I wasn't there and they aren't allowed to give personal information over the phone. So he told me if I paid $1700 by the 22nd then he would drop the case. What do you do?

Under https://800notes.com/forum/ta-4f7d326029dcf9d ... lectors-finally

Even scam artists are outsourcing. On Tuesday in its first crackdown on fraudulent telemarketing in South Asia, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it was shutting down two California-based companies that used a call center in India to defraud Americans out of more than $5 million over the past two years.

Workers in India made threatening calls to Americans getting them to pay money on debts that they didn't owe, the FTC charges. At an FTC press conference in Chicago on Tuesday, fraud victim JanLaree DeJulius explained that she had received a call from someone claiming to be an enforcement officer from the (phony) "Federal Department of Crime and Prevention," who threatened to have her arrested and have her wages garnished if she didn't pay a bill of more than $730. The scam artists had gotten her name and information from a payday loan her ex-husband had taken out in her name.

"It was very embarrassing," Dejulius said. "He knew everything about me so I agreed to set up an installment." She is not alone. According to the FTC, more than 8 million calls were made since 2010 and at least 17,000 transactions processed across the United States related to the global scam.

On Tuesday under request from the FTC, a U.S. District Court in Chicago stopped the international operation, charging Varang K. Thaker and two companies he owned, American Credit Crunchers, LLC, and an affiliate Ebeeze, LLC, with violating the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

"This is a brazen operation based on pure fraud, and the FTC is committed to shutting it down," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau. "Consumers should not be pressured into paying debt they don't remember owing. Legitimate debt collectors must provide consumers with both written information about the debt, and instructions for protecting themselves if they don't think they owe the debt."

According to the FTC's charges, Thaker used Social Security numbers and bank account numbers obtained from payday lenders to identify the victims for his scam. He outsourced the work to an Indian call center, where workers made threatening calls to American consumers to pay fake debt or collect on bills for which they were not authorized.

Thaker was not available when contacted by telephone on Tuesday. A woman who claimed to be Thaker's older sister and asked not to be named for privacy reasons said he is working with the FTC to help the Indian government pursue the fraudster call center operators. She also said he was innocent in the scam. "He was being used by somebody. He didn't even know where they got the information," she told The Huffington Post by phone. She said that her brother got 10 percent of the earnings from the scam operation.

The FTC charges against Thaker are the latest in a series of police actions by the government agency to put an end to rogue debt collection operations that have become more frequent in the aftermath of the Great Recession. In January, the FTC struck a $2.5-million settlement with debt-buying company Asset Acceptance, LLC, charging that the company had falsely represented itself to customers, including making up phantom debts that customers no longer owed. Last October, the FTC filed a complaint against seven other fraudulent debt collectors, alleging that they had engaged in the same techniques -- demanding money from customers who owed nothing at all.

The growing number of Americans who are unable to pay their bills has meant there are more companies looking to profit from their economic difficulties.

Debt collectors have been taking more aggressive tactics as fewer people are able to make ends meet or are in a cycle of debt. More than 30 million Americans are in debt collection, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Since 2010, more than 4,000 complaints have been filed with the FTC and state attorneys general about fraudulent debt collection calls, the FTC said.

Charles Junitkka, a personal bankruptcy attorney who represents clients in the New York City area, said, "In the last few years, the desperation of the collectors and their efforts have intensified because of the economy."

This story has been updated to reflect comment from a woman who says she is the sister of Varang Thaker. Thaker himself was unavailable for comment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/ftc- ... _n_1289751.html


[admin edit March 11, 2012]
[ANNOUNCEMENT]

A network tv producer is investigating online payday loan scams where victims are constantly harassed  by callers with foreign accents impersonating American lawyers or law enforcement who threaten them with arrest or judgments.

Specifically they are looking into American Credit Crunchers shut down by the FTC.

In the Credit Crunchers case, calls were made from Ahmedabad, India. Does anyone know how these call centers operate, and whether or not this case is just the tip of the iceberg?

If you have information you're willing to share, please contact the producer offline at teriabc@gmail.com.  We have checked Teri out and she is legit.  She is also interested in getting any audiotapes of the threatening calls that were recorded at the time.

I received a yellow sticky on my desk when I returned to work.  I am not sure what it is about.  However, the note say Dept of Legal Affairs, Paul white with an extension.  First, I don't know if I should call.  I think they want my personal address or work address to send some kind of papers.  I can't call from work, but they are harassing me.  Are there any suggestions?

Thank you for this information. So how do I go about stopping them from harrassing me? I have already filed a complaint with the FTC but what do I do when they still threaten?

I am going through this right now. They have called my cell phone just this morning alone 12 times. What did you do to stop them? Can they actual arrest or do anything to you? I have contacted the CA attorney general, FBI, ftc and ic3.

Now I am being threatened.  Fraud, bad check charge, etc.  All I did was ask that they send me paperwork on these offenses and the hung up on me.

Same thing here. They claim I owe over 5000 and I need it to them by today. They have called me 30 times today and I refuse to talk to them. They threaten to take me ti jail

Getting a message like all the above..I dont answer & ne4ver will going to see if Verizon will block this number!!! I dont think they even can do what they are threatening by laws in certain states etc. If i do answer i will let them know the President of the U.S.A. is my close friend & said for them to call them!! He isnt but I can dish out too!! Not scared at all!! It is however very annoying and cant undertand a word that is coming out of his mouth..lol

UPDATED: I blocked the # through verizon! Hope it works!! It is a scam I will never call them back!! ; /