Just happened today with my wife. Didn't find out till after she told me. Guy said he was Jim Griffin on a voicemail, saying there was a complaint filed against her and that he would serve her papers unless she called that 718-412-8699 number. She calls it and guy calling himself Mark Wilson from Lincoln and Lawson law firm sounded off her social security number, asked her if she knew a couple people (she did) and said in 2011 she applied for a PayDay cash advance loan for 400$ but never paid. Threatened to call her work every day and serve her with papers, told her she would be in and of court for years and the total would be closer to $1,000. My wife was scared and said she couldn't pay, he put her on hold, and came back with an offer for her to pay $213 over the phone by credit card and the Payday company would consider the matter resolved. My poor wife was scared and paid it. As soon as she told me I knew it was a scam, the address he gave we hadn't lived in since 2009 and according to him, she applied for the loan in 2011 from that address. Not to mention lawyers don't resolve things that way. Called the bank and immediately canceled her bank card and they are crediting the money back to our account, and the bank is filing charges. My wife's only crime was being too easily scared but he must of really worked her over verbally. These crooks knew just enough information about her to make her think it was legit.
Received a call today from someone stating they are a process server telling me they will deliver paper to me today between the hours of 1-4pm either at my home or at my job.
This place called my mother today saying they need to serve me with papers. First of all my mother lives in Ohio and I have not lived there in 20 years. They have some nerve scaring a 71 year old woman making her think I was in trouble with the law or courts. I hate these dang scammers.
This is a common ploy by criminals attempting to extort money from people by scaring you into believing that you will be criminally charged, go to jail, lose your driver’s license, have wages garnished, be sued, and a variety of other variations on this, all for an alleged or nonexistent debt. They also use the “process server” who calls and claims he is going to serve you, but then says you could avoid it by calling another number. Now why would a “process server” want to do you, a stranger, a favor, and at the same time not get paid to deliver the papers?
Federal law (FDCPA) requires them to send you a letter (US MAIL ONLY) within 5 days of their first contact that contains their name, physical address, the creditor’s name, and the amount of the alleged debt. It also must contains “mini-Miranda” telling you that it is an attempt to collect a debt and that all information will be used for those purposes. The one other important thing that this letter must also have in it is that you have a right to dispute the debt within 30 days of receipt of the letter and if you do so, all collection activity must be stopped until the debt is verified.
Read up on your rights here, get template letters to send and also make a complaint at this government site: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/
Also file a complaint with your State Attorney General's office.
List of State AG’s offices: http://consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php