Criminals are masquerading as debt collectors in an attempt to extort money from people by scaring them into believing that:
a. You are going to be sued and it will cost you lots of money when they allegedly “win” their case.
b. That they are about to file criminal charges or that you will be criminally charged (they use the bad check or hot check claim a lot) and go to jail, even though debt is civil not criminal, there are no criminal charges, and debtor’s prison was outlawed over 200 years ago.
c. That they will take away your driver’s license.
d. That will garnish your wages without actually being suing you, going to court, or even winning a case and obtaining a judgement followed by a judge’s consent to the garnishment. They also claim that your wages will be garnished in amounts far above all legal limits.
One of the tricks they use is to call your family, friends, neighbors and/or places of employment (past or present or both) to create panic and embarrassment so that their intended victim calls them and they can scare that person into paying their extortion money. They often call people that have never even been associated with you because they get erroneous information off of the internet.
They will use the words “Mediator”, “Arbitrator”, “Law Office” or claim that they are a “Lawyer or Paralegal” to make you believe that they are something other than a debt collector want-a-be and that they don’t have to follow Federal and State collection laws, even though they do have to follow those laws. They also tell you that if you fail to call them back you are "waiving your right to council" or that “the case will proceed without you” which is pretty much nothing but hogwash. They tell you that they need a “statement” from you regarding the complaint and if you don’t call back they “wish you good luck as things unfold”. They use the phrase “consider yourself notified/served” or “govern yourself accordingly” a lot, something they should do themselves.
They claim they are officers of the court, or that an officer will accompany them, or even that they are sending officers to arrest you. All hogwash. They tell you to lock up your dogs and guns for “everyone’s” protection. More hogwash.
They mention that they have received a Fax document, to create the sense of urgency and tell you that they are a “process server”. This is simply ruse to get you to call another number (with a made up case number) where they will ask for money to “make it go away” (this is actually the same place, they work in teams, one pretending to be the server, and the other usually pretends to be a lawyer). They threaten to serve you at home or at work. They tell you that if they serve you at work they need a supervisor, security, or HR person there as a witness, hoping that will cause you to panic over the alleged embarrassment of being served at work. They also tell you that you will need two forms of ID. None of which is true. Process servers do not ever call ahead so that you can dodge them. Process servers get paid to serve papers, nothing else. They certainly are not going to pass up a paycheck by telling you that you can avoid being served, they are not going to give you an extra day or even a few hours to get a “stop order”. Court documents are time sensitive and have to be served within a certain amount of time. Remember that you can always call the local courthouse to see if there is actually a lawsuit that has been filed against you.
Read up on your rights here 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://800notes.com/faq/attorney-general
Looking for someone named Deanne Adams who works at Magnum Engineering in Corpus Christi. I told them I did not know who that was they called me a liar and said she put me down as a reference and was trying to serve her papers. I again told them I had no idea who this was and told them to quit calling me. They still call be 10 times a day.
Called my phone 3 X's in a 2 minute time frame, finally left a voicemail, woman was speaking so fast I could barely understand her. Said I had charges filed against me and to call an 855# with a case#. The VM is 34 seconds long can't understand the case # or phone # I'm supposed to call back. After reading all these other messages about it I'm going to call it some sort of a scam. If charges have truly been filed against me for some reason my address is not hard for the courts to find me to serve me.
Got a call from Connie Bishop asking for my son. Told her I was his mother and ask what she wanted with my teenage son. She spoke really fast and said he had charges filed against him. I could not understand the rest because she was talking so fast. She then called my husband and my son and left voicemail with case# and 855# .
Criminals are masquerading as debt collectors in an attempt to extort money from people by scaring them into believing that:
a. You are going to be sued and it will cost you lots of money when they allegedly “win” their case.
b. That they are about to file criminal charges or that you will be criminally charged (they use the bad check or hot check claim a lot) and go to jail, even though debt is civil not criminal, there are no criminal charges, and debtor’s prison was outlawed over 200 years ago.
c. That they will take away your driver’s license.
d. That will garnish your wages without actually being suing you, going to court, or even winning a case and obtaining a judgement followed by a judge’s consent to the garnishment. They also claim that your wages will be garnished in amounts far above all legal limits.
One of the tricks they use is to call your family, friends, neighbors and/or places of employment (past or present or both) to create panic and embarrassment so that their intended victim calls them and they can scare that person into paying their extortion money. They often call people that have never even been associated with you because they get erroneous information off of the internet.
They will use the words “Mediator”, “Arbitrator”, “Law Office” or claim that they are a “Lawyer or Paralegal” to make you believe that they are something other than a debt collector want-a-be and that they don’t have to follow Federal and State collection laws, even though they do have to follow those laws. They also tell you that if you fail to call them back you are "waiving your right to council" or that “the case will proceed without you” which is pretty much nothing but hogwash. They tell you that they need a “statement” from you regarding the complaint and if you don’t call back they “wish you good luck as things unfold”. They use the phrase “consider yourself notified/served” or “govern yourself accordingly” a lot, something they should do themselves.
They claim they are officers of the court, or that an officer will accompany them, or even that they are sending officers to arrest you. All hogwash. They tell you to lock up your dogs and guns for “everyone’s” protection. More hogwash.
They mention that they have received a Fax document, to create the sense of urgency and tell you that they are a “process server”. This is simply ruse to get you to call another number (with a made up case number) where they will ask for money to “make it go away” (this is actually the same place, they work in teams, one pretending to be the server, and the other usually pretends to be a lawyer). They threaten to serve you at home or at work. They tell you that if they serve you at work they need a supervisor, security, or HR person there as a witness, hoping that will cause you to panic over the alleged embarrassment of being served at work. They also tell you that you will need two forms of ID. None of which is true. Process servers do not ever call ahead so that you can dodge them. Process servers get paid to serve papers, nothing else. They certainly are not going to pass up a paycheck by telling you that you can avoid being served, they are not going to give you an extra day or even a few hours to get a “stop order”. Court documents are time sensitive and have to be served within a certain amount of time. Remember that you can always call the local courthouse to see if there is actually a lawsuit that has been filed against you.
Read up on your rights here 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://800notes.com/faq/attorney-general