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.
Received an automated call from United States Department(of what pray tell lol). It asked me to press 1 to connect and when I did it sent me to voicemail and asked for my name and number to call me back. Apparently brains are not a requirement to work at this scam organization.
I believe they may be legitimate collectors because they told me their name, company name, and verified info without me telling them anything.
However, their collection practices are highly illegal. They are trying to collect on time barred debt that default over 10 years ago. In CA statute of limitations is 4 years for written contracts. Second of all, they are threatening to sue if I do not settle, again another illegal tactic. This may be one of the collection agencies that was shut down called Integrated something. They now go by Integrated Financial Group.
If you have bad credit (like me) and have suffered outrageous finance charges and use payday lender because your access to credit is nothing, do not feel bad and know your rights. Check your states Statute of limitation laws, read up on the Federal Laws that govern scum bag third party collectors. Do tell them your address, and request verification letters. Because if you try to hide, you may find that they will try to file an illegal lawsuit and get a defaulted judgement because you gave them a fake or old address. A debt collector cannot sue on time barred debt. The clock on time barred debt starts on the first day your payment went into default. The caveat to that is if you actually made a payment to the collector, then you unfortunately restarted the clock.
Don't get down on yourself about your debt, we all make mistakes, and you are paying the piper with bad credit and horrible access to loans for everything. Don't listen to scumbags who come on here and call us losers for not paying our bills. We are paying with other consequences, and that is fine by society. Learn your rights, fight back, and learn from your jmistakes.
Total scam!!!! They won't provide any info such as street address or LIC number!!! I'm actually filing s formal complaint against them for harassment and also in the works with local media to get the word out so no one falls victim to this scam!!!