**WARNING** Payday Loan SCAM!!!!

Yep, this has been happening for a long time, we receive numerous complaints from people who have received such calls.

Thanks for the reminder; and many times these low-lifes will use names for their organization that sound vaguely like legitimate agencies, such as "Federal Bureau of (whatever)" or titles such as "Officer So-and-So", to scare people into sending them money.

I have experienced these calls - or harrassment claiming to be FBI and a whole lot things. Threatning comments - going to jail - coming to your job. They are crazy - but will not send any supporting documents. They do not have any!

Gesh. Wow. Glad I posted this. I havent heard of this scam, so glad I got the message. Thanks all.

"Hez", how are these people able to do this? How can they just "pose" as payday loan collectors or law enforcement, as you said, and get away with it? Who will hold them accountable?


[QUOTE=hez;726190]I am passing this news along. I received this information from my debt consolidator and wanted to share it with everyone.

There is a group of scammers operating from India that is purchasing old
payday loan applications and posing as debt collectors and even law
enforcement officers trying to recover on an old payday loan. They use the
information in the applications to convince victims they are legitimate
(i.e., they know the references given, job info, etc.) and are very
aggressive. The call many times in a single day, use threats and profanity
and generally harass the victim into paying.

You can recognize them easily.

1) Phone numbers from California, Florida and New Jersey show up in your
caller ID. These are the numbers they use to tap into the U.S. phone
system.

2) They have VERY thick accents and cannot understand most of what you say
even though they claim to be lawyers, ''officers'' and even FBI Agents.

3) They use vague names for the loan they are collecting on, i.e., ''Payday
Loan'', ''Cash Advance'' or ''Instant Cash.'' Alternatively, they may name
a real loan company that you never borrowed from.

Whatever you do DO NOT PAY THEM. They do not own your debt and are not
collecting on any legitimate company?s behalf. Any money you pay them will
go straight into their pockets and not towards your real debts. Worse,
they will mark you as a ''pigeon'' and call again a few weeks later about
''another'' loan.
[/QUOTE]

What is a "pigeon", as mentioned in the last paragraph?

I am hoping never to use a payday loan again. I am going to get better with my money, I swear to God.

A pigeon is someone who can be easily scammed. If you pay these guys once they assume they can scare or trick you into paying them again.

They are in India and robbing Americans isn't illegal in India. State AG's have no power outside of their states, the federal agencies don't have authority outside the U.S. and the White House isn't going to make a low-level criminal enterprise a major issue in India-U.S. relations (especially THIS White House, which seems more interested in apologizing for being American than in representing Americans to the world.) So all the agencies (Colorado AG, West Virginia AG, FTC and many others) have been able to do is to try to raise awareness through press releases, notices on their websites, etc.

They are now calling me claiming to be from Affidavit Processing Company (APS) - which by the way, is not even a correct acronym. Further proof that these guys are scammers from a foreign country.

I finally answered the phone today after months of letting their calls go to voicemail. I spoke with one person, whose name I'm not even sure of because his accent was so thick (but i believe he claimed his name was Adam Sweet or Street). He started giving me his usual speech about 3 cases being filed against me. He then started giving me names of my supposed "parents" (one name was not the name of my mother, but of one of my best friends, though he got my dad's name correct and has been calling him as well) and stating that they would be called too if necessary to settle the matter. I didn't confirm any of the information but I asked him what it was about and he told me to hold while he got his supervisor. The "supervisor" had a much clearer accent and told me his name was James Carter, gave me some random employee number (1182) and repeated the company name APS. I asked again what it was about and he started rambling about information he had on me and then asked me to verify the last 4 digits of my social security number, which I declined to do. I cut him off and asked him again what this was about. He claimed that I owed money on a payday loan and that he was calling me to collect the debt. I told him that I didn't owe any money because I never took out any payday loan. He then got defensive and started telling me that legal action would be taken against me if I didn't pay and then began using the information he had about my "parents" to apparently try to scare me into giving up information. I informed him that I didn't know these people, which seemed to anger him further. He then stated that if I didn't cooperate, I would be arrested. He further claimed that someone would be at my address to arrest me tomorrow, that I would be spending Christmas in jail, and that he could not help me. Then he hung up.

I have already filed a police report about these calls with the local and state police and have registered a complaint with the FTC, as well as filed a fraud alert with all 3 credit bureaus.

I suggest that anyone else who receives these calls do the same. Also, hopefully if you tell them that you have their information and have reported them to the FBI and Homeland Security, they will stop calling.

I also suggest that, if they have correct names and numbers of relatives/friends, you call them and let them know about the scam and tell them not to call them back or if they answer the phone to not verify any information. Tell them to let these people know they have been reported to the FBI and Homeland Security and then hang up.

What boggles my mind is that there have apparently been numerous complaints filed all over the US and yet this is still occurring. Why hasn't the government been able to do anything about this blatant harassment? I would hate for anyone to fall victim to these criminals, especially around the holidays.