612-355-1007

Someone from this number called me at 7:30 am, on a Saturday morning.  This is a terribly early time for me since I go to bed very late, because of work, at around 2:00 am.  I can hardly function at this time, much less speak on the phone with someone I would not know who he/she is.  So, when I saw the number in our caller ID, I did not even bother to respond.  But it does disturb me that somebody would call us at this time of the morning since none of our friends and relatives ever do it.

Long unintelligible voicemail message left on my work phone. It sounded like a very poor quality VOIP call.

received unintelligble voice mail at work from this number; reverse lookup says it is a land line in Minneapolis - called the number and let it ring for a very long time with no answer.

Yet another number linked to the ongoing overseas payday loan debt collection scam:

I had message on my cell number 'As soon as you receive this message you or your retained attorney need to call immediately, if I don't hear from you or your attorney you will be in serious legal consequences.' Very thick Indian accent. When I didn't return the call they started harrassing me a my work. When I called back I had to speak to another person not the person who left me the message. He told me that I was being charged with 3 counts of theft and if I didn't show up for court on 9/23/09 that the local authorities would come and arrest me. In the back of my mind I thought that this was fishy, but I asked a lawyer friend of mine about it for a just in case. My lawyer friend was right! This is nothing but a big scam and at first scared me to death because I had no idea what it was about. Thanks for these comments.

http://whocalled.us/lookup/3105981768

This scam has been going on for well over a year, now and has been recognized as such by the BBB:

Chicago, IL – August 5, 2009 – The Better Business Bureau is issuing an alert about phony debt collectors that are calling consumers nationwide and claiming that they have defaulted on a payday loan and will be arrested if they don’t pay immediately. Claiming to be lawyers, the scammers say they are with the “Financial Accountability Association” or the “Federal Legislation of Unsecured Loans” and are equipped with a disconcerting amount of personal information about their potential victims.

“Because the scammers have so much information about potential victims, the BBB is concerned that this may be the result of a data breach,” said Steve J. Bernas, president & CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving Chicago and Northern Illinois. “Thousands of people may have had their personal information compromised, and given the scammers’ tactics, it appears that those who have previously used payday loan services could be particularly at risk.”

According to reports received by the BBB and posted online, the scammers accuse the victim of defaulting on a payday loan and claim they are being sued. The phony debt collector threatens that, if the victim doesn’t pay as much as $1,000 immediately via wire or by providing bank account or credit card numbers, he or she will be arrested and extradited to California within the hour to stand trial. The scammers often may have the victim’s Social Security, old bank account numbers or driver’s license numbers as well as home addresses, employer information and even the names of personal friends and professional references.

The BBB offers the following advice to consumers if they receive a suspicious telephone call about an outstanding debt:
* Ask the debt collector to provide official documentation in writing which substantiates the debt.
* Do not provide or confirm any bank account, credit card or other personal information over the phone until you have confirmed the legitimacy of the call.
* Review recent copies of your credit reports to ensure that the alleged debt is not affecting your credit. Consumers can do this for free once every 12 months, and can find more information here: http://www.ftc.gov/freereports 
* Under the Federal Trade Commission's Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, debt collectors may not harass, oppress, or abuse any person while attempting to collect a debt.
* A debtor may be contacted between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. only and can be contacted at work unless instructed not to.
* File a complaint with the FTC online if the caller is abusive, uses threats or otherwise violates federal telemarketing laws.
* File a complaint with BBB online at www.bbb.org if you believe a debt collector is trying to scam you.

http://www.thinkglink.com/article/2009/08/06/ ... eading-says-bbb

https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-618-5897

This is a very active group of scammers, many of whom are calling from India (and probably other countries) and are in cahoots with a group of American pay day loan scammers. They attempt to extort money from consumers with a myriad of false and illegal threats, and alternately pose as debt collectors, federal and state law enforcement officers, lawyers and bankers. Their trademark is to use meaningless legalese gobblygook phrases like "We are downloading warrants against you" or "We are filing an affidavit against you." Another trademark phrase is to threaten the consumer with something like this ridiculous phrase: "If you don't pay then only God can help you."

Typical of many financial scams of this variety, they usually demand payment via Western Union or MoneyGram or credit card. They use any number of phony names such as US National Bank, Federal Investigation Bureau, US Legal Investigation Bureau, Hopkins Law Office, United Legal Processing, Morgan Associates, United Pay Services, National Processing, White Collar Crime Unit and many more.  These criminals also use many phone numbers from many area codes; they're probably using caller-id spoofing software and/or VoIP to disguise their real location.

The main thing to remember is that anytime someone calls you demanding money to prevent your arrest, or demanding your lawyer's name so they can sue you, it is ALWAYS a scam. No debt collector (let alone criminals posing as debt collectors) has the authority to have anyone arrested for anything. (And it's illegal to them to threaten such a thing.) And since these foreign dirtbags routinely impersonate law enforcement, it's also important to remember that American law enforcement officers aren't in the business of debt collection.  (Debt is a civil, not a criminal, matter.)

The bottom line is, these are criminals trying to steal your money.

A consumer posting a complaint about these same scammers at https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-718-831-7157 notes that 718-831-7157 is associated with an India-based "outsourcing" telephone bank.  Though a reverse search on WhitePages.com shows that 718-831-7157 is an unlisted land line in New York City, information on Debtbuyers.Com shows that that number is used by India-based Intellisourze. (Source: http://www.debtbuyers.com/debtbuyers.asp ) My guess is that it's a VoIP phone number.

This is another piece of the puzzle that fits in perfectly with other information about this scam. There are some reports on 800Notes that have suggested that the crooks behind this offshore scam are also the crooks behind the notorious Bass/Ellis Crosby & Assoc./States Predisposition scams in Florida and Georgia. The interesting thing is that the number of complaints on here about the US National Bank/US Legal Investigation/Federal Investigation scam skyrocketed *after* April 7, 2008 when Florida obtained a $1.3 million judgment against Ted Ellis Crosby, shutdown his operations and barred him from ever conducting debt collections in Florida (Read http://myfloridalegal.com/newsrel.nsf/newsrel ... 5257424005858A6 ) There's certainly a good chance that the crooks placing these calls from India are doing so on behalf of the American crooks behind the Crosby/Bass/States Predisposition scams.

Here's the contact information for the phone bank in India:

IntellisOurzE BPO
701, Sapphier, Nr. Cargo Motors,
C.G. Road Navrangpura,
Ahmedabad - 9. (Guj.) INDIA.
E-Mail: info@intellisourze.com
Website: www.intellisourze.com

A check on the domain name "intellisourze.com" shows that the website and name registration was created on May 8, just one month *after* the Crosby scams were shut down in Florida:

Domain Name: INTELLISOURZE.COM
Registrant:  Pragra Infratech Pvt. Limited.
Email:  ankur.ranpariya@pragra.com  
908, Aksaht Tower, Nr. ICICI Bank
Opp. Rajpath Club, S.G. Highway
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India 380054
Tel. +91.7926871353
Creation Date: 08-May-2008
Expiration Date: 08-May-2009
Domain servers in listed order: ns5.znetindia.com ns4.znetindia.com
(Source: http://whois.domaintools.com/intellisourze.com )

Though scam calls from these crooks have been going on long before May 8, the frequency of complaints about these calls increased considerably after Crosby was shut down in early April.

This is conjecture, but appearances suggest that Crosby and company were originally running a two-pronged payday loan scam operation -- with some calls being made from Jacksonville, Florida and other calls being made from a phone bank in India (and possibly other countries); then, after the Florida Attorney General shut down the Crosby scams in Florida, the Crosby crooks transferred most of their scam efforts to the India phone bank.

If you are targeted by these criminals, be sure to report them to all the following federal and state law enforcement agencies (most of which you can do online or over the phone):

1) Alert the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov  Be sure to tell the FBI that you are being targeted by extortionists over the phone. And if the crooks claim to be law enforcement, lawyers, officers of the court or bankers, or if they threatened you with arrest, be sure to include that information in your report.

2) File a complaint online with The Federal Trade Commission at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en

3) File a complaint with your local police. Most police departments will take a report over the phone.  Be sure to tell them that you're being targeted by an extortionist and give them all the details.

4) The caller placed the call under a Texas area code. Even though the caller ID was probably spoofed or they're using VoIP technology to hide the fact that they're really calling from overseas, you should also file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/consumer/complain.shtml 

5) File a complaint your state's attorney general, the contact information for whom is at www.naag.org

6) The U.S. Secret Service is responsible for protecting the country's financial infrastructure and payment systems from international and domestic threats. Call or write your local Secret Service field office to alert them to the details of this attempted extortion. The addresses and phone numbers for the local Secret Service field offices are listed at http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml or in your phone book.

If these crooks call back, promise them nothing, pay them nothing and tell them nothing other than that you know they're a scam and that you've reported them to law enforcement. (And be sure to report them to all the agencies above each time they call you.)

By the way, here's just a small sample of numbers used by this particular group of scammers. Read the reports and you'll see the same pattern time and again -- phony organization names, thick foreign accents, and oddly worded threats that are so melodramatic and ridiculous that it's laughable:

https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-925-262-1327
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-678-954-6346
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-341-4004
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-856-831-0640
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-743-1140
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-410-505-8128
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-917-464-2534
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-210-858-6602
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-775-2121
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-743-1156
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-245-1402
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-245-0922
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-723-5572
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-904-425-2863
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-718-831-7157
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-904-425-2857
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-858-244-0444
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-954-678-9724
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-610-571-3252
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-310-909-8245

...and, many, MORE.

Got a Saturday morning call; nearly unintelligible saying that I won 2.5 Million dollars in an unintelligible lottery. How could that happen, I ask? Because I am a resident of the united states. Short version of the call, I hung up.

I got a phone call from this number and was confused to find out it was  a friend of mine calling me from bahrain. when i asked him why it said his number was that which we are talking about he had no idea, and we hung up and he called again but this time it showed the proper number...talk about weird.

I have a friend in the Netherlands and when he calls me this is the number that shows up on my caller id.  It's a calling card.

some jack [***] called my cell saying I WON A MILLION DOLLARS.... i thought it was PCH b/c i had just signed up for it... it wasn't... good thing I wasn't dumb enough to give any personal information.

This person or company has been calling, hassling me 612 355 1007, and has been harassing my work place

Just got a call from this number.  Called it back and it was Viking Magazine Services, who operate a telemarketing scam.

I just had this phone number call me and tell me that I had won a chance for a drawing for $1 million dollars held in December. I ask him how he got my information and he said probably by taking surveys. Which I don't do or by in the phone book they have. I told him I wanted my name taken off and all my info also. Sounds like a scam to me.

Why would you offer me one million dollars and hang up? I want my million bucks. Call back, call back!

annoying call

I have now received 8 calls from 8 different numbers in the past few days! This is the 4th one today!  Is there some way to block these numbers from calling?

I can't answer because I'm at work and they never leave a message.  They are driving me crazy!!!!!!