Who called from 2132266944

Written on behalf of a friend that recieved a call: Caller(suspect) (possible asian male or hispanic male with accent) stated he was a Federal Agent from the Los Angeles area and was investigating fraud with Pay Day Loans being the victim.  Victim was told criminal action would be taken and the possibility of a jail term of 3 months was pending. Caller (suspect) requested $15,000.00 to clear the matter. Caller (suspect) advised its not the $300.00 dollar loan fraud its a federal crime thats the problem and that teh victim was going to be arrested.

I got a call today from an Officer Robert Mathews. Said I and my son in law had commited internet fraud. Wanted me to give a credit card number to pay back??? He didn;t give name of company that was harmed. He also had our names and phone numbers and email addresses. Has anyone reported this to the FBI or anyone else? He told me I would be arested and go to jail for a min of 2 years! My daughter and son in law use the pay day loans company quite a bit and I see it listed above as well. Perhaps this is the comon denominator>

I, too, had a call from some (suspect Indian?) from 213-226-6944. Just like the rest of you, threatens to use my social security number and have me arrested. Ironically, this is the same male that also called me from last week from 786-866-5901. Once I told him that I wanted to see "Proof" and everything in writing, he became insulting and not only threatened to have me arrested, but fired from my job as well! I told him if he continued to harrass me, that I would report these calls to the Atty. General. It was then that he called me from this 213 number.

It's a scam. And all their threats are false and illegal.

ABC News just did a report on this particular scam. Here's the link to the report:  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1

This is a very active group of scammers, many of whom are calling from India (and probably other countries) and are in cahoots with a group of American pay day loan scammers. They attempt to extort money from consumers with a myriad of false and illegal threats, and alternately pose as debt collectors, federal and state law enforcement officers, lawyers and bankers. Their trademark is to use meaningless legalese gobbylgook phrases like "We are downloading warrants against you" or "We are filing an affidavit against you." Another trademark phrase is to threaten the consumer with something like this ridiculous phrase: "If you don't pay then only God can help you."

Typical of many financial scams of this variety, they usually demand payment via Western Union or MoneyGram or credit card. They use any number of phony names such as US National Bank, Federal Investigation Bureau, US Legal Investigation Bureau, Hopkins Law Office, United Legal Processing, Morgan Associates, United Pay Services, National Processing, White Collar Crime Unit and many more.  These criminals also use many phone numbers from many area codes; they're probably using caller-id spoofing software and/or VoIP to disguise their real location.

The main thing to remember is that anytime someone calls you demanding money to prevent your arrest, or demanding your lawyer's name so they can sue you, it is ALWAYS a scam. No debt collector (let alone criminals posing as debt collectors) has the authority to have anyone arrested for anything. (And it's illegal to them to threaten such a thing.) And since these foreign dirtbags routinely impersonate law enforcement, it's also important to remember that American law enforcement officers aren't in the business of debt collection.  (Debt is a civil, not a criminal, matter.)

The bottom line is, these are criminals trying to steal your money.

A consumer posting a complaint about these same scammers at http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-718-831-7157 notes that 718-831-7157 is associated with an India-based "outsourcing" telephone bank.  Though a reverse search on WhitePages.com shows that 718-831-7157 is an unlisted land line in New York City, information on Debtbuyers.Com shows that that number is used by India-based Intellisourze. (Source: http://www.debtbuyers.com/debtbuyers.asp ) My guess is that it's a VoIP phone number.

This is another piece of the puzzle that fits in perfectly with other information about this scam. There are some reports on 800Notes that have suggested that the crooks behind this offshore scam are also the crooks behind the notorious Bass/Ellis Crosby & Assoc./States Predisposition scams in Florida and Georgia. The interesting thing is that the number of complaints on here about the US National Bank/US Legal Investigation/Federal Investigation scam skyrocketed *after* April 7, 2008 when Florida obtained a $1.3 million judgment against Ted Ellis Crosby, shutdown his operations and barred him from ever conducting debt collections in Florida (Read http://myfloridalegal.com/newsrel.nsf/newsrel ... 5257424005858A6 ) There's certainly a good chance that the crooks placing these calls from India are doing so on behalf of the American crooks behind the Crosby/Bass/States Predisposition scams.

Here's the contact information for the phone bank in India:

IntellisOurzE BPO
701, Sapphier, Nr. Cargo Motors,
C.G. Road Navrangpura,
Ahmedabad - 9. (Guj.) INDIA.
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: www.intellisourze.com

A check on the domain name "intellisourze.com" shows that the website and name registration was created on May 8, just one month *after* the Crosby scams were shut down in Florida:

Domain Name: INTELLISOURZE.COM
Registrant:  Pragra Infratech Pvt. Limited.
Email:  [email protected]    
908, Aksaht Tower, Nr. ICICI Bank
Opp. Rajpath Club, S.G. Highway
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India 380054
Tel. +91.7926871353
Creation Date: 08-May-2008
Expiration Date: 08-May-2009
Domain servers in listed order: ns5.znetindia.com ns4.znetindia.com
(Source: http://whois.domaintools.com/intellisourze.com )

Though scam calls from these crooks have been going on long before May 8, the frequency of complaints about these calls increased considerably after Crosby was shut down in early April.

This is conjecture, but appearances suggest that Crosby and company were originally running a two-pronged payday loan scam operation -- with some calls being made from Jacksonville, Florida and other calls being made from a phone bank in India (and possibly other countries); then, after the Florida Attorney General shut down the Crosby scams in Florida, the Crosby crooks transferred most of their scam efforts to the India phone bank.

If you are targeted by these criminals, be sure to report them to all the following federal and state law enforcement agencies (most of which you can do online or over the phone):

1) The U.S. Secret Service is responsible for protecting the country's financial infrastructure and payment systems from international and domestic threats. Call or write your local Secret Service field office to alert them to the details of this attempted extortion. The addresses and phone numbers for the local Secret Service field offices are listed at http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml or in your phone book.

2) Alert the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov  Be sure to tell the FBI that you are being targeted by extortionists over the phone. And if the crooks claim to be law enforcement or lawyers, officers of the court or bankers, be sure to include that information in your report.

3) File a complaint with your local police. Most police departments will take a report over the phone.  Be sure to tell them that you're being targeted by an extortionist and give them all the details.

4) File a complaint your state's attorney general, the contact information for whom is at www.naag.org

5) File a complaint online with The Federal Trade Commission at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en

If these crooks call back, promise them nothing, pay them nothing and tell them nothing other than that you know they're a scam and that you've reported them to law enforcement. (And be sure to report them to all the agencies above each time they call you.)

By the way, here's just a small sample of numbers used by this particular group of scammers. Read the reports and you'll see the same pattern time and again -- phony organization names, thick foreign accents, and oddly worded threats that are so melodramatic and ridiculous that it's laughable:

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-925-262-1327
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-678-954-6346
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-341-4004
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-856-831-0640
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-743-1140
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-410-505-8128
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-917-464-2534
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-210-858-6602
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-775-2121
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-949-743-1156
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-245-1402
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-245-0922
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-723-5572
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-904-425-2863
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-718-831-7157
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-904-425-2857
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-858-244-0444

Person called at 5:30 AM (PST) to my employer asking for me, while I was unavailable.  Person then called my mother-in-law stating that he was "Officer James O'Connor" from the Los Angeles Police Department and that I was being "investigated for fraud" and was to be arrested on criminal charges at 4:00 PM that same day unless I wired $1,600.00 US to them immediately.

I contacted LAPD, who stated that they had no warrants for my arrest and that no outstanding warrants were posted anywhere in the United States.  I also contacted my local police department, who confirmed that their were no warrants out for my arrest.  They also informed me that this was most likely a "debt collection scam".  They contacted the company in question, who promptly denied impersonating an officer.  When the sergeant asked for contact information so that we may contact them for legal action, she was told that they are based outside of the US were we have no jurisdiction.

The called stopped for about a month, but I received yet another call to my employer today with the same threat of arrest unless I wired them money immediately.  I let them know that they already attempted and failed to scam me a month ago and that I was not falling for it this time either.  They claimed I was wrong and that "only God can help you now" and hung up.

The scary part is that they had ALL of my information; Name, Address, Phone Number, Employment Information, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, Spouses Identifying Information and etc.