626-569-7487

It is another band of chithead Pakistanis acting as if they are legit. They are scam artists that try to scare you. They threaten you with arrest.This can't be done for a debt. Then, when you call them out, they curse at you in very bad English. For those of you that are getting these alls, simply report them to the FTC, and then local authorties. There isn't much the LE can do about these annoying calls because they originate from outside of our country, However, we need to put pressure on the phone companies that triagulate these calls, This one triangulates from Alhambra California. The local phone company there needs to know what their phone lines are being used for.

Just got a phone call from this number just now. I wish they would stop this crap!!! I didn't answer it but sent them to voicemail. They are crazy. You can hardly understand them but they have a common name like Mike Shannon... Please... use that on someone else!!

I also just got a call. My phone display said the call was international so I didn't answer. If they want you to consider them legit they should learn to speak English. After bombarding me with all sorts of threats the woman had the nerve to say "Have a nice day."!!!

This is what exactly just happened to me, they told my 6yr old who answered the phone they were goin to take his daddy to jail, believe me I grabbed that phone when he started screamin no dont take my daddy to jail, and I cussed that [***] out, and I let them know I am on to them and they were not getting 760.00 from me!Please people DO NOT fall for this!

I keep them on the phone for an hour asking them all kinds of questions. They HATE it. Actually got one toadmit it was a scam. Now I call them at Random. they hang up. I asked them to go out for porkchops and bacon. F the scammers

I just had the same exact thing happen to me but they contacted my work..
Reported them to the FTC and My State agency.
I hope something is done.

known scam- from 626-569-7487, name given "Max Maurice", even gave a case number--then changed it. I was supposed to deliver a message to a friend that they would be at her work 11:00 AM Friday to arrest her and take her to court and that I would be required to go also and someone would call me.

So i received said call from a Mr. Bush and thankfully I read this blog prior to returning their call!!! So I reported them to both FTC and my local Authorities as well as filed a report in Alhambra, Ca online via
http://www.cityofalhambra.org/government/poli ... assEnglish.html
In my report I stated exactly what happened. Let's see if anything comes of it!

Okay, I just got a phone call as well, but it was for a client of mine in bankruptcy  This is what's going to happen.  I'm going to find out the service address for this son of a [***] and file a lawsuit against them for violation of the FDCPA under Section 1692 e (1) - (16).  We'll put an end to this [***] one way or another.

yes i got a few calls from a Shawn Taylor and a Lisa Rhone and they called my friend says she was due in court monday @ 2pm cause im going to jail..i called and said if i gotta debt then where is my bill if you have my address and all my info..They hung up and i called back i pissed him off. So im waiting til  Monday 11am..im sick of these stupid m*********ers, i get calls all day so annoying...So i lets see what comes of it!!!

Ok, I have been getting calls from these people in regards to a "payday loan" so I decided to have fun with them myself. As others have stated, once confronted they started to "try" and cuss me out. They are not to good at it. I called back because after I told him he smelled like Curry he hung up on me. I asked for a physical address ant which point I was given 130...something. I asked him to spell it and he spelled something very fast. I asked him to repeat it slower and he said "NO" if I couldn't understand him, I shouldn't call there anymore and hung up on me. I called right back and was cussed out from the get go. He even brought my mom into it! LOL. I called back from my other phone and asked for the address again. This time it was 127 669th st. I asked what state and he said Texas. I said, " I Thought you were in Florida". He said "Yes, Texas, Florida". I Laughed. I then proceeded to close my hand cuffs in the phone and asked if he could tell me what that sound was. He said no, so I told him they were hand cuffs and I had kept him on the phone long enough to trace and triangulate the origin of the call and I needed him and his colleagues to stay there because they were being investigated for fraud and we needed to come arrest them and we would be there shortly. He hung up!

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, 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 (usually in California)
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.  

Who are they?

In the past when pressed by law enforcement for an address, the callers have provided the following information:

David Morgan and Associates
Morgan & Associates
Morgan Associates
954-727-8481
1155 Northwest 85th Street
Wintergarden, Florida  33150
(Address is likely invalid)

The collector's MO matches a once legit collections agency called Ellis Crosby & Associates.  Here are some links on them:

http://www.budhibbs.com/collectorpages/ellis_crosby_and_associates.htm
http://www.budhibbs.com/collectorpages/EllisCrosbyJudgment.pdf

They have been previously fined over $1.3 million for various violations.  They have been known to use phone banks in India to make their calls, which more or less coincides with the difficult to understand accent many of us detect when we are contacted.  

The last time this group went by any "official" name was back in 2008:

Ellis Crosby & Associates / Douglas & Morgan Associates
4494 Southside Boulevard Suite #200
Jacksonville Florida 32216
Phone:  800-928-3536 / (904) 928-3536
(Address is likely invalid)

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

Missouri:
On July 15th, 2010 a Public Awareness Bulletin was sent out by Missouri Information Analysis Center.  

"..received reports from individuals in Ohio and Illinois reference suspicious telephone calls they received. In both instances, the callers are reporting that a voicemail is received from a man, with a Middle Eastern accent, identifying himself as an officer working with the Financial Crimes Unit.  The message indicates that the reason for the call concerns a loan made by the receiver or someone in the receiver's family. The voicemail requests that a return call be made and a telephone number is provided. When a return call is made, the caller is asked to provide personal identifying information such as their date of birth and social security number.

Reports indicate that the calls are frequent and persistent and that they even threaten arrest or legal action if information or money is not provided. It appears that the individuals making these calls may have access to some records connecting individuals and their relatives.  Missouri does not have a Financial Crimes Unit and all indications are that this is a fictitious agency. If you receive a similar phone call, please be advised that it is a scam and please contact your local law enforcement agency or the Missouri Information Analysis Center at 866-362-6422."

Bottom line:

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.

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

So can they really do anything to you?

It's not a simple yes or no answer.  Logic dictates that, if they really wanted to take you for a ride and drain your bank accounts, they already would have.  

So, why haven't they?  

Authorization.  

Why do you think you are being called so much?  Perhaps it is because they like the sound of your voice?  No, they have to have your authorization to take any form of payment from you, period.  The callers know their audience, and that audience is typically a bunch of people that have applied for payday loans in the past.  Most of those people they call couldn't afford an attorney if they wanted one, and are so used to receiving collections calls that so long as they sound like a real collector, they will likely be perceived as one.

Furthermore, they don't even really want to talk to your attorney - that just sounds official and scary enough.  A real attorney would take the callers to task and write them off as two-bit con artists.  The callers need you, in writing, to authorize payment against the fictitious debt they claim you owe.  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

I started getting calls to my moms house for her to tell me that I was being sued. When I called it was over a $500 payday loan that I never took out but now I owed over 5000 and it was being filed that day unless I paid. I didn't call back, but they kept calling and saying thier officers were coming out to my house to get me and my reference and take us to the courts (not legal, they are bad at this). Then I could fill out a form and be let go of all charges. Then the next call was to tell me the time I and now my husband were being arrested the next day. I called in and was told a lower amount to pay by credit card. When I told him the cop next to me would give him my credit card info, i was so upset I went and turned myself in and the cop wanted to talk.. he started cursing me out...I wasn't really at a police station but I wanted to see what would happen and for sure its a scam,... be careful because its upsetting at first, your taken off guard....

A man named David Parker keeps calling my phone and threatening to come take me to jail.  He says I took a payday loan in 2008 and never paid it.  I have never done this!  He won't tell me the name of his "law firm", but keeps insisting that he is coming to get me.

I received a telephone call at work from a guy with a thick, Middle Eastern from 626-569-7487 claiming to be a representative from the Oakview Law Group.  He told me that he had left several messages for over a week here at my job and that I had failed to return his calls.  He preceeded to tell me that I was going to arrested on Thursday at 11am for failure to pay back a payday loan that I had taken.  When I asked him about the name of the company and the date, he said that the paper he was looking at was a "soft" copy and that the hard copy would be downloaded in time for my arrest.  I continued to hit him with more questions about the legitmacy of the debt and of him and his company, he then decided that I needed to be put on hold.

Just hang up on him.  Not worth your time.

Threatened I was going to be arrested.  Completely fraudulent.  False accusations about "money laundering."  Why can't we get these creeps?  Gave info that calling from Oakview Law Group of Tampa Florida which does not exist.  How did they get my number?

Received a message on my voice mail from Jack Brown (with a heavy Middle Eastern accent) and I was to call him back immediately or have my attorney of record call him.  This was a business matter that needs to be settled or whatever else he said.  Can't understand most of it.  Is also extremely nasty and he called me at my job earlier today and I just hung up on him.  I recognized his voice because it was the same jerk that called me from (916) 236-4571 in October.  I thought we got rid of him but.....he's back.....That DO NOT CALL LIST is a big scam also.  I added my number to it and also my cell phone and I still get calls.

Use a scanner to make it sound like you have a police radio in the back ground and inform them of the laws about threatening debtors as that is illegal. If you really want to have just inform them about its a felony to threaten an officer. Don't say that you are one unless you are. I was hung up on and now every time I call in they quickly hang up on me.

I just received a call from these ignorant people. Thanks for all the useful information.

They just called me at work - had me so upset didn't know about scam.  Thanks for posting all this it has helped tremendously.