Who called from 7868669155

I RCVD A CALL FROM THE SAME PERSON BEFORE CALL FROM NEW YORK STATING HE WAS FROM THE FEDERAL INVESTIGATION UNIT AND I NOW HE WAS CALL FROM 786-866-9155 IN MIAMI, FL..... STATED AGAIN HE WAS FROM THE FEDERAL INVESTIGATION AND REQ A CALL BACK. THIS MAN HAD AND IRAN/INDIA ACCENT...PLS BE CAUTION....

i got 3 calls from him yesterday as well. they're a scam and they try to use scare tactics to defraud you of money. when i told him that i've called my attorney and the police to verify their validity, he got mad and demanded that i speak to his supervisor. to which i said, "no there's no need. I'm hanging up with you now because I'm in the middle of filing a complaint against you with the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau" at which point he hung up. if you get a call from these people, be sure to report them to the FTC & the BBB. they're operating in another country, Bangladesh i want to say.

I got a call from this guy saying he was from the Federal Crime Investigation. He read me off what he said were my charges according to the affidavit, money laundering, fraud of some sort and something else relating to US Bank. His accent was so strong that I was unable to understand what he was saying.  He told me to have someone with me so that I can be bailed out of jail. He was extremely rude. He said but I did a check on your social and I see that you have never had any problems with the law because we did a criminal background check on you so we are willing to work something out. To his surprise I have had problems with the law and even went to prison.  The good news is that I had heard of collection agencies sometimes threatening people with jail time so I figured that this was a collection agency and when I asked he didn't even respond to the question. I don't know how he had so much of my information down to my social security number.  The end of the call was that he said I would find out who they were within 48 hours.

I'm receiving threatening and annoying phone calls from "Off. Ron Collins" from the "Financial Crimes Unit". He calls my work phone and pages my work pager repeatedly throughout the day. He calls wanting to read an "affidavit", but when I insist I don't know what he is talking about, he continues to attempt reading the "charges" and says I'm being sued for several different federal and/or financial crimes. I can barely understand his english, so he put his "supervisor" on the phone, but it sounds like the same person. When I tell him I'm at work and not to call me, he calls me right back or pages me again.

Today, he left a message which I saved; He was threatening to humilate me at my workplace and around my place of residence.  I alarmed my husband and now my husband is leaving threatening calls to him after he googled the phone number and found out THIS IS A SCAM. I don't know who he is or who he is working with, but he's very demanding.

I still don't know the point of his phone calls or how he got my information. He only says the last 4 digits of my SS# and reads me my e-mail address. I figured if this was legit, they would be calling me at home and having a summons delivered via the U.S. Postal Office.

DO NOT GIVE HIM ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION AND DO NOT CALL HIM BACK WITH AN UNBLOCK NUMBER.

Per EC's post http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-909-6789

It's a scam, and all their threats are false and illegal.  The bottom line is, these are criminals trying to steal your money.

Here are a few news reports and government advisories warning consumers about this scam:

ABC News:  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1
West Virginia Attorney General:  http://www.wvago.gov/internetloanscam.cfm
WTAE TV4, Pittsburgh:  http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/call4action/17285785/detail.html
Florida Commissioner of Consumer Services:  http://www.800helpfla.com/newsletter/2008/092008.html

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. 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, US Federal Bank, Sonic Bank, Hopkins Law Office, Christian Nicholas & Associates, CashNet, Financial Crime Prevention, National Crimes Division, United Legal Processing, Morgan Associates, United Pay Services, National Processing, White Collar Crime Unit, David Morgan & Assoicates 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.

These scammers 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."  Other trademark phrases include threatening the consumer with ridiculous phrases such as "If you don't pay then only God can help you" or "If you don't call me back then I can only wish you good luck."

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.)

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 (
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/1-904-425-9141
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-336-553-3965
http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-888-909-6789
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/1-310-909-8245
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