This number has called my cell phone several times. I answered it once but my cell doesn't pick up good signal at home. It is a number from Portland Oregon.... I live in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you ever find out who it is, please let me know. Thanks, Sam
I just receive a phone call from these people and they are tricky little buggers. I received a recorded call at my job with the civil case number and letting me know I had been warned. So then, I called. I spoke to the female first who told me it was a law firm... O'conell and Greeman. I asked where are you located, she never responded. I made the mistake of verifying my last four... don't give them any information. She pulled up an old address from years pass and asked me if I still lived there and I stated know. She then proceeded to tell me that I have a civil case against me for a MY DIRECT payday loan done on Nov. 11, 2010. I told her that was impossible. Then when I asked again where they were located, she said not far from you. I think go upset and told her if she could not fax me any information, could not tell me where they were located I was done. She pulled up my bankruptcy information and transferred me to a Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis told me that I took out a payday loan on Aug. 14 of 2011 and I told him that was impossible, but then if you read my post carefully... notice the dates of the loan changed. When I confronted him about it, he stated I was going to be thrown out of bankruptcy and not only a civil case, but a criminal case was going to be filed against me. He told me that he was going to contact my attorney, I told him GO FOR IT. My attorney would love to deal with you.
So please do not let these people scare you, keep good records and geet some credit protection because they are going to try to take you if you allow them to.
My attorney told me the same thing when I started getting these calls two years ago. If they filed ANYTHING against me, at least then I'd know who to sue the pants off of.
But they won't, because they're just criminals looking to scam people. I never respond, and anyone else I know who gets these calls about me knows to just hang up.
Google "phantom debt scam" and you'll find many, many similar stories.
A) No law firm would ever warn you that they were going to sue you or tell you when they were going to serve you. You just get served. That's the best leverage any lawyer has to get you to pay, because even once they make the papers, they'll work it out with you if it's legitimate. It's always cheaper from a lawyer's standpoint to settle a debt out of court. (well ok, maybe not always, but small potatoes like this yes)
B) It's illegal to claim to have the ability to serve court summons unless you're a process server. (and again, they wouldn't warn the person, they'd just serve them).
C) It's illegal to threaten you with criminal action for ANY debt. It's also illegal to claim to be someone with the authority to charge you with a crime when they're not a law enforcement officer. This is my favorite when I actually have to talk to them, because I tell them "Let's see who can call the sheriff first, ok?"
D) There is no reason under the sun why "your HR department" would need to be notified about anything related to a civil or criminal complaint against you unless it had already gone to court and your wages had been garnished. It's actually illegal for them to inform anyone else of the specifics of your alleged debt.
E) They will never tell you their own physical location (because then they'd get caught). They use fake names (like Clarence Thomas) and sometimes real law firm names to make themselves sound more legitimate, but they're not lawyers, they're not legitimate, and they're not legal.
If you can't send me something through the postal service, I would really like to see you serve me with a court summons.
In my experience, it's best to simply ignore them entirely.
Within two weeks, we have received 5 phone calls from 971-404-0843 and 650-353-9357 and both numbers come up as Unknown Number on our caller ID. They are leaving messages on our voice mail, a man says he has received a fax authorization to serve us with papers that are bringing a law suit against us in a court of law, and he wanted us to return his call so he could hear if we wanted to be served at our place of employment or at our home. He warns us that we are being given a last chance to settle this before taking the matter to court.