PORTFOLIORECOV

Please help me stop this weird company. A anti-telemarketing company my mom used in the 80's, now they're calling for "their money back". We don't eve have "their money"! major scam. please help stop these crooks. Oh, and also, they scammed my dad, SUCCSESSFULLY. They stole 1,000 dollars and counting from him! The worst thing: He signed a  contract, so what they are doing is PERFECTLY LEGAL. this is ridiculous. I cant even afford a lawyer to sue them for the hard earned money OUR FAMILY LOST TO THEM! please help.

You give us NO helpful information so we can't really give you anything helpful!

http://www.bbb.org/norfolk/business-reviews/d ... aints#breakdown is a 3rd party debt collector. Are you saying they've disguised themselves as an anti-telemarketing company? Wonder what associated affiliated subsidiary that falls under?

Looks to be another Godaddy site...

Legal aide or pro bono  attorney.. Are you saying they disguised themselves as a anti-telemarketing company to get paperwork signed?  Highly illegal.. seek a FDCPA/TCPA attorney.  Portfolio is constantly being sued over their shenanigans of illegal antics..

Otherwise your post really doesn't make sense.

We have plenty of established phone number threads for Portfolio Recovery. There have been a couple forum threads started by company shills besides. We won't need another one out here, and I'll be asking Admin to lock this one shortly. You should do some brief searching and place remarks where they belong next time. You will also need to be more articulate about your problems or no one can help you, not even those with legal chops. Learn to give before you get.

Your comment is too loaded with orphaned pronouns and shifting focus for anyone to follow, as you can see by prior replies. I have to make some leaps of logic myself to respond at all. Which "they" are the "crooks"? Who is accused of stealing? Who would you like to sue? The creditor "anti-telemarketer", the collector PRA, or both?

My guess would be that PRA is chasing some crusty debt from three decades ago, something which gets reported with enough frequency to call it a trend. The original creditor is long gone from this picture and likely cannot be touched. That puts your focus on the conduct of PRA, which I might presume is enforcing dusty contract terms because it can.

Please note with care, Portfolio Recovery Associates is a debt buyer and collector in Norfolk, VA. It is *not* a pure "phishing and scam" operation. PRA is a high volume buyer of real debt accounts with real people's names on them for which they seek and win real judgments in real courthouses. While PRA has a long history of lawbreaking and the claims it makes on those accounts can be somewhere between flimsy and unenforceable, we have to make this distinction from a "scammer" who works only with invented "facts" so that other potential victims will not assume PRA can be safely ignored.

PRA counts on an easy lawsuit win and gets one most of the time, because most defendants lose their nerve or their marbles and fail to raise any challenge. PRA is known to routinely break laws while collecting prior to filing suit, and skates by again when people succumb to stress and do not defend their rights. Well, as fellow readers passing by, none of us can help you "stop this weird company". You can be assisted in helping yourself.

Right away if you glance around, a certain article link has been visible on every 800Notes page for six years:
Harassing calls from a debt collector?
https://800notes.com/arts/KBN5c2IZiAC_wQjKBNRWFA

Here are some starting places for learning the laws all third party debt collectors must obey in the US, from the two federal agencies with primary oversight:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpajump.shtm
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/askcfpb/search ... debt-collection

I'll even be nice enough to debunk the "can't afford a lawyer" myth. The FDCPA authors did not want a distressed debtor to let retainer fees get in the way of punishing bad agencies. They wrote an unusual "loser company pays all" provision into § 1692k(a)(3). A competent consumer attorney should have no trouble running with good claims on contingency. Your cost up front should be somewhere from zero to a court filing fee.

FDCPA § 1692k. Civil liability
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1692k


PS: The word is "anonymous".

>>> PS: The word is "anonymous". <<<

Maybe he meant "duplicitous," instead. :-)

At least it rhymes!  On the other hand, my handle here rhymes with "European black grouse."

heh-heh, yes .... A shill playing Desperate Victim is entirely possible. I'm inclined to take the high road of suggesting that some people unwittingly build their own traps when they should be looking for a different approach. "Don't Let This Happen To You", I solemnly intone in my best cornball training movie voice.

I really would like to hear back from "anonamous user" because I can hear the script in my head now. It would go something like "create fear" "confuse and overwhelm" "elderly, vulnerable or uninformed" then saying that they can stop all calls if they pay up (extort) money. All that could look like what they tried to describe. To the predatory cowards in 3rd party debt collection that's what every conversation script sounds like. If they were pressed for information I'd bet there was some predation on relatives involved too!

Hit the wrong reply, oops was for @Res

An "anti-telemarketing company"  in the 80's?     I was around back then and at that time telemarketing itself was more a minor nuisance than the plague it is today.   I can't recall any anti-telemarketing companies even existing at that time.

In rereading this thread, I found this comment:

>>> Looks to be another Godaddy site... <<<

So what? **I** use a Godaddy site, and even use their domain name registration privacy protection. And the phone company I use the most uses a Godaddy site for their control panel.

You can't jump to conclusions just because someone uses Godaddy. Yes, I know I jump on scammers who use magicJack all the time, but that is based on the reasons that I usually explain over and over in my posts. There really is no reason to reject a call from a magicJack number just because it is a magicJack number (I have used their service on occasion, too).  There IS reason to reject calls from caller ID numbers you don't know, but this has nothing to do with magicJacks per se.

Please let us avoid jumping to conclusions like this one:  "Some scammers use Godaddy services to perpetrate their scams. Therefore, Godaddy is a rogue service, and anyone using it is a scammer."

People used to condemn the entire Internet for all of the evils in the country using the same sort of reasoning.

This is a "common carrier" argument you seem doomed to repeat.
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-96c4fc4c9cb2d73 ... 208310614585135

ANonie, it's the fact that I've seen too many scam sites with them, and they have the attitude (to me) of; 'if we can make money off it, we don't care what it's used for, even if our name is dragged through the mud by it'. I find that a bit of a turn-off is all, and have heard on the other site that someone tried to let GoDaddy know about this and they basically blew the person off (at least I think I did-don't quote me on that). GoDaddy is the lesser offender here-Enom and WhoisGuard is worse in my eyes as they have all those work at home scam spam links going on (just found another one a few minutes ago). I'm sure your site is fine and that shows me that good people use it, but I would never use it myself.

>>> I'm sure your site is fine and that shows me that good people use it, but I would never use it myself. <<<

I'm not completely enamored by Godaddy, either, but I continue to use it because:

(1) Their help lines, staff, and servers are located in the United States (which is critical to me because of what I do);

(2) Their help lines are available at times when other registrar's and web service providers' that I've tried aren't;

(3) They don't have a snarky-sounding announcer playing advertisements on their help lines with really bad music at other times (YMMV - some younger web masters may actually LIKE that music)

(4) They don't seem to put your shared email server on a server that gets blocked because you are accidentally sharing a site with a scammer or worse, a porn site bulk emailer;

and

(5) They don't open up shared calendars on your site when someone mistakenly shares their calendar with you, so they don't have to give excuses as to why they can't get this unknown third party out of your calendaring system.

Regarding WhoisGuard, the only reason this originally existed was because of unscrupulous people spamming and scamming or even stalking web site owners just because the registration information is routinely made public.  (My website ONLY shows my picture, where I am licensed (which is publicly available information), my physical address, email address, phone number and fax number, and gives an alternate web site address for me (which is also my own, but does NOT have anything like WhoisGuard) where one can go to get additional information.  The alternate web site is not behind any "WhoisGuard" type protection.  My web site is also reached via a ".pro" address, which also is not behind any protection.  Only my ".com" addresses are protected.

The upshot is that, if you can recommend a service better than Godaddy that meets all of my needs, by all means, suggest it to me and I will consider it.  Godaddy isn't perfect, and it can be expensive.  And I don't like the way they advertise themselves.  But for my purposes, it fits my needs.  

Also, if their reputation is such that it reflects negatively on me just to use them and their WhoisGuard service, please let me know.

Got serious....HONEST....news for you!  Portfolio Recovery is one of the most harassing, hounding, hateful, rude, mean debt collector I have EVER come across in my lifetime!!!  No matter how SICK you are.....they will hound you until you wish you were dead and never had to hear their voices or messages again!!!  Got it, Mr. Know everything about Portfolio and their reputable business of harassing the poor and disabled!!!!!