The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, is warning consumers to be on the alert for scam artists posing as debt collectors. It may be hard to tell the difference between a legitimate debt collector and a fake one. Sometimes a fake collector may even have some of your personal information, like a bank account number. A caller may be a fake debt collector if he:
•is seeking payment on a debt for a loan you do not recognize;
•refuses to give you a mailing address or phone number;
•asks you for personal financial or sensitive information; or
•exerts high pressure to try to scare you into paying, such as threatening to have you arrested or to report you to a law enforcement agency.
If you think that a caller may be a fake debt collector:
•Ask the caller for his name, company, street address, and telephone number. Tell the caller that you refuse to discuss any debt until you get a written "validation notice." The notice must include the amount of the debt, the name of the creditor you owe, and your rights under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
If a caller refuses to give you all of this information, do not pay! Paying a fake debt collector will not always make them go away. They may make up another debt to try to get more money from you.
.•Stop speaking with the caller. If you have the caller's address, send a letter demanding that the caller stop contacting you, and keep a copy for your files. By law, real debt collectors must stop calling you if you ask them to in writing.
•Do not give the caller personal financial or other sensitive information. Never give out or confirm personal financial or other sensitive information like your bank account, credit card, or Social Security number unless you know whom you're dealing with. Scam artists, like fake debt collectors, can use your information to commit identity theft – charging your existing credit cards, opening new credit card, checking, or savings accounts, writing fraudulent checks, or taking out loans in your name.
•Contact your creditor. If the debt is legitimate – but you think the collector may not be – contact your creditor about the calls. Share the information you have about the suspicious calls and find out who, if anyone, the creditor has authorized to collect the debt.
•Report the call. Contact the FTC and your state Attorney General's office with information about suspicious callers. Many states have their own debt collection laws in addition to the federal FDCPA. Your Attorney General's office can help you determine your rights under your state's law.
I kid you not I get at least 2 calls per week from a host of companies and they are always for a quick payday loan taken out on a US bank account or the US bank account itself. All of these were allegedly taken out over a year after I left the state of Ohio and in each case I walked into a branch and opened the account. I guess I have some mad teleportation skills.
Of course you get the usual litigation and arrest scares. I have supposedly been taken to court over 30 times now and the police are coming to Florida to drag me back to Ohio. It can get hilarious after awhile and even when you let them know they are scammers they still continue with the threats. At least I know how a complete moron and loser can get a job.
I received a message from a private number leaving this number, 770-983-6747, as a call back regarding the urgent need to speak to me or my "administrator" about "the processing of [my] state and federal law." This makes absolutely no sense to me so I ignored it until I received a second weird call. I then did a phone number search to find that this is a common scam number. Thanks everyone for sharing your stories. This was mine. I feel even more secure about ignoring it now.