The call (to my elderly mother) was from a debt management company, using the name of "First Security Management", but worked with another company as well; one collected the payment for the service, and the other handled the paperwork. They state they are based in Chandler, AZ. but there is (of course) no record of that company to be found.
They were told that their services were not desired but they said they were going to go ahead and charge her credit card for the service, with the necessary paperwork to authorize the charge to follow, then they hung up. They later called back and was again told that it was not needed, and the woman said that my mother had to have a very good reason in order to not accept their services. She was again told that their services were not needed, then the women got nasty and hung up.
This company had already pulled a credit report and knew her FICO score, credit cards, monthly payments etc, so they made it sound like they were a legitimate company. Quite a scam going on there....
I get these all the time - they are credit card scam outfits, mostly in Florida, but they are everywhere now. The con is to offer credit card rate reduction, get as much info from the 'mark' as possible, then access their credit card and run up the bill to the limit - all of the info they ask for, if given to them, allows them to do this and the victim is left with an even bigger debt. They are ALL criminal organizations.
They do NOT stop calling you for any reason, no matter how many times you 'press nine' or whatever number they suggest to remove your number from their database. They are criminals, and use either fake numbers, or ones of people who've recently moved and had their number disconnected.
The best thing I've found to get them to stop - at least for a month at a time - is to go to http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ , have the program make several fake names with credit card numbers, addresses, etc. Then print them out and have them by the phone. fakenamegenerator does not make up a few things, so make these up yourself:
an 800 number
a bank's name
a three digit number (like one on the back of real card)
an account balance (act like you're looking it up from a bill and make it something just over the minimum they're asking about). Make it sound real, like 11,432.
an account limit a few thousand OVER what your fake balance is - that's what they're looking for, so they have an idea of how much they can scam you for. This should be a round number, like 18,300, or 23,500 - something like that.
NOTE: do NOT give them any real information. No numbers from your real credit cars or anything. Use ONLY false information.
They'll go down a list of things to ask for which, if you were giving them real information, would give them full access to your account and if you miss something - i.e. they ask for something you didn't have ready, make it up as best you can.
What you're doing is WASTING their time. They've wasted some of yours, so make it unprofitable for them to ever call you back. Unfortunately they sell entire databases of phone numbers (ones that connected) to other criminals, so even after you get them to stop, using this technique, you might get another round of calls a month later. This happens to me - EXACTLY one month after one group stops calling, another one starts, and I have to start all over again.
The FTC is NOT ever going to do anything about this. They can't. These people use fake caller ID numbers. The phone company won't trace anything for you unless they've threatened you. All we can do to stop this is become aware of what they're doing and make it unprofitable to continue. Unfortunately there are plenty of stupid or naive people out there, so this will never go away - but at leat you may be able to do something about them calling YOU.
The call (to my elderly mother) was from a debt management company, using the name of "First Security Management", but worked with another company as well; one collected the payment for the service, and the other handled the paperwork. They state they are based in Chandler, AZ. but there is (of course) no record of that company to be found.
They were told that their services were not desired but they said they were going to go ahead and charge her credit card for the service, with the necessary paperwork to authorize the charge to follow, then they hung up. They later called back and was again told that it was not needed, and the woman said that my mother had to have a very good reason in order to not accept their services. She was again told that their services were not needed, then the women got nasty and hung up.
This company had already pulled a credit report and knew her FICO score, credit cards, monthly payments etc, so they made it sound like they were a legitimate company. Quite a scam going on there....
The caller said he represented AARP and was calling about U.S. Medical Trust which had a policy that would supplement our current medical and prescription drug plans. The cost was $468 per year and covered every member of the household. It paid for medical, prescriptions, dental, eyecare and hearing costs. I asked them to send me printed information about the plan and they said after I joined I would receive an ID card in the mail along with all the information about the benefits. When I started to question him about his company being endorsed by AARP and more information he simply hung up.