Fraudulent companies trying to collect on payday loans

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Has anyone else had issues with ACS and/or an Officer Kevin Anderson (definitely not american) claiming to be from Dept of Law and Investigation in reference to payday loan account? If so who were you instructed to notify if anyone?

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Is the FTC gonna send a swat team to India to arrest them? The FTC was able to get to Cash Today because Cash Today had assets in the U.S. All these clowns need are VOIP phones and an offshore bank to process the credit card transactions - both of which are beyond the FTC's reach. The only way to deal with these guys is to help yourself and quit waiting for the nanny state to come save you.

1) Use your caller ID and avoid the calls. The more they are able to reach you the longer they will keep your number in their predictive dialer and the longer the calls will last.

2) Keep a loud whistle with you and blow it into the phone if they do reach you. Won't help with the dialer program but it will physically injure the "telephone tough guy" (for a minute or so at least) on the other end and it feels real good to do it. Might even cause him to ask his boss to manually remove you from the system.

3) If you still have the bank account you listed when you applied for payday loans in the first place, close it. (The scammers buy old payday loan applications and then call the people years later saying they defaulted on a loan.) I haven't seen anyone complain that they debited an account yet but these guys are criminals and have that information. Why take a chance that they'll figure out how to that next?

I'm not against filing complaints, but it's a waste of time with these guys. They aren't collectors, they are a criminal scam operating entirely outside the United States. All the cease-and-desist orders in the world aren't going to stop them, the FTC isn't going to get the FBI involved and if they could they would need to (a) find the source of VOIP calls routed through several proxies and (b) ask the Indian authorities to arrest them. Seeing how much trouble we have getting other countries to give up their drug traffickers, do you really think any of that is going to happen?

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Another fun one is to answer the phone (when you know it's them) as "FBI agent Jones badge number 5412345" they will usually hang up and not call again for awhile. (make up a name and number) I know it's childish and immature and doesn't mean a thing but these scam people have the tendency to call like 20 times in a row nonstop.... so at least it stops them once you answer for a minute or two (or a couple of months)
They always show up again eventually....

I got a new message of similar sorts today from a different number and name John Smith caller ID +1 (214) 629-7263 TX, USA and call back # left on voicemail 214-269-7645. When I get calls from other people i know in different states it doesn't put the +1 in front of their #.

contemplating changing my cell phone number so I won't have to go through debating on whether or not I should answer my phone or not when I do not recognize a number. From the message that the person "john Smith" left yesterday I am pretty positive he is one of the scam/fraudulent companies out there. Is it awful that I have had to deal with enough of them that I do not even want to call the number back to give them any kind of satifaction to make sure that they are scammers. I truly feel that if they aren't scammers they would send me something in the mail. I am leaning on changing my cell number that way they won't have a way to contact me unless it is by mail that is if they actually have my mailing address.

I started receiving calls again at work from these pakistani/indian people if you can call them that again after nothing for a month as of yesterday. I got called down to Human rsources with my manager to discuss it because they were fielding the calls but they became ignorant this time with them so they have decided they do not want to put up with it anymore and that I have to make it stop. I am not sure how I am suppose to do this when I received an email from the Attorney Generals office a couple weeks ago stating :

Please be advised the Bureau of Consumer Protection is in receipt of the online complaint you submitted concerning phone calls you are receiving from someone claiming to be a debt collector. Our office attempted to determine who may be behind these calls, but with our limited resources, we were unable to do so.

I regret our office is unable to assist you in getting these phone calls stopped.

I am attaching a link to the Federal Trade Commission's article on Fair Debt Collection for your review. You may find it useful to read this article so you understand what a debt collector can and cannot do. It also explains your right to ask the caller for a "validation notice" to confirm the debt actually belongs to you.

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2][URL="http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.pdf"][SIZE=2][COLOR=#0000ff]http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre18.pdf[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][/SIZE][/FONT]


Below is a link to a 2008 story ABC News did on fake debt collectors:
[SIZE=+0][URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1"][COLOR=#0000ff][COLOR=#0000ff]http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1[/COLOR][/COLOR][/URL] You will note this type of scam has been around for at least two years.
By agreeing to a payment plan and to send them money without first requesting a validation notice to make sure this was indeed a true debt that you owe, your contact information has now been added to a "suckers list" that will be passed around or sold to other con artists.

The company refuses to send me a validation letter by mail because they are not allowed to mail any documentation to home address is what they tell me. and the recent number that showed up on the work caller ID is 081-067-5560 and his name this time was Kevin hill. I talked to the local police dept and he tried a couple numbers with nothing or at least that's what he said and that their isn't anything they can do. So my employers want me to make return calls to Attorney generals office and try to get them to do something. I really do not know what my employers might do if I can't get this to stop. Any advice or feedback will be appreciated!!!
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These collectors probably aren't even in the U.S. There really isn't anything more you can do besides continue to complain to the proper authorities. You have no control over how many times these people call you, your employer should understand that. Share with your employer the steps you are taking to get this stopped, explain that beyond that it is completely out of your hands. One thing I will suggest, when these calls are received, do NOT speak to them, hang up immediately. The more you give them someone to argue with, the more they will call, give them NO ONE to argue with, hang up, and your employer should do the same.

I received one of these phone calls today from "The State Investigation Agency". The caller was Steven and I couldn't understand his last name. The call came from 052532545. I was asked to call him back and the call back number was 206-395-2014. He said I owed $289 in a payday loan. I have taken a payday loan before but always paid it back completely even before it was due. I asked him for documentation and he said he could not provide documentation. I asked him if he wanted my credit card number to pay this off and he said yes. I asked him if he thought I was stupid. I told him to go back to India where he sounded like he came from that all Americans aren't that stupid!! He hasn't called me back but if he does I'm going to use the whistle in his ear. The nerve of these idiots....