904-425-2857

A consumer who posted reports on 800Notes about being harassed by scammers calling from 856-831-0640 notes that he is now getting the same scam calls from 904-425-2857. (See https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-856-831-0640/5 )

If you receive a call from someone using 904-425-2857 who demands money from you, please know that it's a scam and that their threats are false and illegal.  This is a very active group of scammers, many of whom are calling from outside the United States. 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. 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.  This group of crooks use many phone numbers from many area codes; they're probably using caller-id spoofing software and/or VoIP to disguise their real location.

There are some reports on 800Notes that have suggested that the crooks behind this offshore scam are also the crooks behind the notorious Bass Prelitigation/Ellis Crosby & Assoc./States Predisposition scams in Jacksonville, Florida and Georgia. The interesting thing is that the number of complaints on 800Notes about the US National Bank/US Legal Investigation/Federal Investigation scam skyrocketed *after* the state of 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 )  Interestingly, 904-425-2857 is a Jacksonville, Florida number.

The main thing to remember is that anytime someone calls you demanding money to prevent your arrest, it is ALWAYS a scam. No debt collector (let alone criminals posing as debt collectors) have the authority to have anyone arrested for anything. (And it's illegal to them to threaten such a thing; it's also illegal for them to falsely threaten you with lawsuits.) And since these dirtbags routinely impersonate law enforcement (which is also illegal), 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. If you've received such calls from 904-425-2857, I suggest you do all the following (most of which you can do online):

1) 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.

2) Alert the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov  Be sure to tell the FBI that you are being targeted by extortionists over the phone who are posing as federal law enforcement. Be sure to give as many details as you can.

3) Since this is a Florida number, file a complaint with Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum at http://myfloridalegal.com/contact.nsf/contact?Open&Section=Attorney_General (By the way, the Florida Attorney General is very aggressive in pursuing and shutting down these type of debt collection scams.)

4) 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.

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

6) File a complaint online with The Federal Trade Commission at https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

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.)

Finally, 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

Hope this helps.

And they told me if I didn't call them right back - what was aboutto happen to me I brought upon myself and that all they could do was wish me luck.  I reported them to my local PD!

Update:

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) 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.

2) Alert the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov  Be sure to tell the FBI that you are being targeted by extortionists over the phone who are posing as federal law enforcement. Be sure to give as many details as you can.

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

5) File a complaint online with The Federal Trade Commission at https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

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

And they told me if I didn't call them right back - what was aboutto happen to me I brought upon myself and that all they could do was wish me luck.  I reported them to my local PD!

Good job reporting them to the police. You may also want to report them to your state's attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI. See my message above for links to those agencies.

ABC News just did an investigative piece on this particular scam operation. Here's the report:  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1

Here's the latest on them from The Consumerist:

US National Bank Scammers Still Extorting Hapless Consumers

"US National Bank" is still at it, calling up people and threatening them with jail time unless they pay up for debts they never took out and USNB doesn't own. Here's K's story of how "Harry Wilson" called him up screaming and yelling. But after speaking to a consumer lawyer, K learned what he needed to say to get the extortionist to stop phone-harassing him. You'll learn too after you read the story inside...

K writes:

I first became aware of this company when my sister called to tell me she had been contacted by "Harry Wilson" from the phone number 951-200-3254. He yelled at her on the phone, demanded that she pay him the money I owed immediately or he would use her Social Security Number to take all the money from her bank account and ruin her credit. He would not tell her what her Social Security Number was when she asked. She hung up on him.

I called and spoke to "Ryan Smith", a man with an extremely heavy Indian accent and was told I was going to jail on Saturday if I did not pay immediately. When I asked for verification of this debt in writing, he told me he was not required to provide that and I would go to jail. He gave me a fax number 914-462-3657 to fax my bank account number, debit card number, social security number and mailing address to so he could get payment.

The loan in question was supposedly taken out on 4/13/2007, a full 7 months before I even opened an account with the bank he claimed the deposit was made to. Then he changed his mind and said the deposit was made on 12/04/2007. I checked my bank account statements and no deposits were made to my account on or near that date.

My sister again received 2 calls yesterday from "Harry Wilson" threatening her with jail time if she didn't make me pay them.

I can deal with the threats to myself, as I am well aware they are bogus, but my young nephew took one of the threatening calls yesterday and was understandably shaken and upset over the incident.

I filed complaints with the FTC and with ic3.gov. I talked to a consumer lawyer to find out my rights in this matter. I was terrified at first, as I'm sure many other victims are, but I knew none of this sounded right. I've not always been the most financially responsible person in the world, but I have always repaid my debts. I took notes on everything this man told me, even making him repeat himself to be sure I had the correct information.

Then the bottom-feeder called me at work yesterday to tell me I was going to jail in an hour if I didn't give him my debit card number immediately. I told him in no uncertain terms that this was a scam and I knew it. I detailed for him every step I had taken and the fact that if his harassment of my family and me continued he would cost his company $1000, which is the amount the lawyer I spoke with told me I would be able to get in judgment against USNB.

He started off trying to talk over me and resorted to yelling at several points, but I continued to speak in a calm, forceful voice and eventually he was silent. I told him one more call to my home, my sister or my place of employment would result in my telling the lawyer the law suit was on. He hung up on me.

My sister spoke with my nephew and explained that there are people out there who steal information they have no right to have and this was a case of that happening. She also told him again that when she is not home he is not to answer the phone unless he knows the person calling (they have caller ID).

I hope they do stop calling. Maybe they will now that you've shown you can't be intimidated. What the consumer lawyer told you was correct, if USNB was actually a legit debt collector based in the US. Because they call from overseas using caller-ID spoofing and never give out their address, it's unlikely you would be able to hit them for that $1000 statutory judgment.

http://consumerist.com/5086468/us-national-ba ... pless-consumers

http://www.legalinvgroup.com/


214-484-0592


scam

collects money

wont pay you