Phantom phony debt collectors with
Indian accents are calling people trying to scare them into paying debts that
are not theirs. Some of the company names they use
are American Credit Services, TAC Evolution, Allied Financial Services,
CashNetUSA, Sonic Bank, Sonic CashNet, CashLand, American Credit Services, American Law
Associates and Cash America. If you know of
others, please add them in the comments section below.
The fake debt collectors call and
say you will be arrested and thrown in jail unless you send money immediately.
The amounts claimed seem to be $400 or $2,500 and a smattering in between. The
calls most often arrive on a Friday when all government office was closed so
you can’t check out their story. The callers use the names of real attorneys
they found on the internet and specifically use your locality or near by area attorney or law firm information to scam you.
Just to be clear, these are not
collectors trying to collect legitimate debts. Most of the complaints on involved consumers who either never took out a payday
loan, or who may have initiated one but never actually secured the loan. In
some cases, the “collector” has detailed information about the victim – such as
name, address and Social Security number – which makes the debt appear to be
real.
Here’s what to do if you get a call
like this:
- Ask the collector for the name and address of the
collection agency for which he or she works. Then ask him to send you
written information about the debt. Any legitimate debt collection
agency will do this because it’s required under the federal Fair
Debt Collection Practices Act.
- If the caller won’t give you this information, hang up.
If a phone number is available through caller ID, report the call on our
forums and to your state attorney general
and the FTC.
- Don’t let one of these companies scare you into making payments if you’re not sure you owe the debt. In most cases, collectors must first take you to court and get a judgment before they can go after your wages or property.
By the way, you can’t be arrested
simply because you can’t afford to pay a debt. (Warning, though, there are
cases where consumers are jailed in connection with debts because they failed
to appear in court after a summons was issued.)
The goal of the scam is to scare the
person getting the call into sending money via Western Union, vanilla cars, pay
safe cards and MoneyGram etc or to give up their bank details to hit your bank
account, in order to prevent the police from coming to arrest you in the next
few hours.
Apparently there are a number of
telephone numbers tied to this scammer that I believe is calling from a call
center in India, Pakistan and Philippines via voice over IP, (VOIP). So the callers really are not even
in the United States although they pretend to be.
Armed with the contact information
like address, driver license, SSN, employee information the scammers in India, Pakistan and Philippines call make outbound calls on a VOIP telephone line and forge any outgoing phone
ID they want. It’s not hard to do. They
might even use a number from a block of VOIP numbers they’ve rented to receive
return calls. After a short period of time they dump the number and start using
a new number.
I found at least one of the numbers
listed as being used by these scammers was issued by a VOIP
service provider and some internal sources. The known numbers tied into this
scam are:
- 213-221-1002
- 213-286-0210
- 213-286-2016
- 213-550-4189
- 213-995-3046
- 310-362-4305
- 310-362-4319
- 310-362-9386
- 313-332-1091
- 343-729-0397
- 407-506-0424
- 408-317-0831
- 408-355-9951
- 415-223-4108
- 415-880-5599
- 496-900-0000
- 619-342-0094
- 714-333-2945
- 714-333-2951
- 714-400-0563
- 714-409-0208
- 714-409-0250
- 714-845-0766
- 718-831-7157
- 818-936-4699
- 904-425-9141
- 941-961-8518
- 949-743-1049
- 973-200-6686
- 484-589-5524
- 897-218-7212
- 609-318-9574
- 936-132-1354
- 760-512-1382
- 425-320-5012
- 516-453-6940
- 360-461-3770
- 516-453-6940
- 970-589-4341
- 801-855-5492
- 508-455-4473
- 979-705-5787
- 510-363-3757
- 646-328-2038
- 818-337-3040
- 646-328-2038
- 323-572-8712
- 323-572-8712
- 951-489-0227
- 707-681-9169
- 806-281-8166
- 347-457-3030
- 972-996-3164
Most of the people who have been
called in this scam seem to have previously had a payday loan from some
company. What I suspect has happened is that one of these payday loan companies
used an outsourced call center in India, Pakistan and Philippines and someone from that call center sold
the names of the customers or contacts.
Well, I just want to inform these call centers is the time has been changed and now federal government and other legal bodies taking action. They just waiting for the right time to hook up the roots linked to these scamming companies. If anyone need information about the companies or people involved contact me anytime. Thanks
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