646-810-8626

got a call from an officer from the federal crimes office investigations. I am to contact them before some one shows up at my door to arrest me. also told too contact them to make arrangements to pay before something happens to my.

DO NOT give them ANYTHING! These people are frauds and they are attempting to scam you!

Receiving threatening voicemails on my cell phone -the caller ID comes up as 000 and a male who doesn't speak understandable english leaves the 646-810-8626 as return number. I have reported to the Illinois attorney general.

I received the same threatening voicemail.  The caller ID comes up with 0000.  I called back and got their voicemail and left them a threatening voice mail.  I am turning them into the FTC and I told them I knew this was a scam call and to stop calling me.  So we'll see if that worked.  Get a real job people and stop trying to scare people.  If really was a legal matter you would receive letters - and certified mail letters!  Do not let these people frighten you.

Said he was Officer Michael Walker badge # 88542 told me there was an arrest warrant for me in NY.  Said if I called and paid that it would go away.  They are calling my work threatening me with arrest or worse.

I received a call from 646-810-8626 said his name was Patrick Ding a Financial Officer, well he wanted my social and I said I do not verify that kind of info over the phone. He proceeded to tell me that there werre charges against me but that if I wanted to clear it up we could without going to court. Well when I informed him that he would have to mail something to my home so that I could show my lawyer that he would get back to him he got upset and said that they had emailed me and I ignored there emails. At that point I informed him that email is not a valid source of correspondance for legal matters. So I hung up on him. Well I got another call from him but this time he proceeded to be vulgar and said he wanted to f*** me and so I hung up. Do not give any information to these people accordding to the FBI in Chicago if it is indeed a true legal matter they will mail you correspondance and you will be assigned a court date.
Also if they have a heavy accent which you cannot understand you have the legal right to ask to speak to someone you can understand.

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

oh my  i paid the son of pop. so what now.how do i get my money back.