This is a company that is trying to extort money from people. I got a phone call from them and told me that I owed money for a payday loan and then he said that if I didn't pay the money back ($1732.45) I would have 2 felony charges against me and that they could put me in jail for 180 days. His name is Lester Williams who claims he is an investigator for this Mediation Company, he wouldn't give me the name of the payday loan place. He also threatens to turn me into the attorney generals office and tells me that I better get an attorney. This is a huge scam! I will be turning them into the attorney generals office and the BBB and the FBI as they have all of my identity, SS#, Bank# and address and phone number.
Got a message from "Elliot Jacobs" with Mediation services notifying me that I have a "pending action" that is about to be filed against me and to call back or "govern myself accordingly".
I called back and spoke to the delightful "Amber Gray" who told me that if I did not pay $1496 today I would be facing two felony counts of fraud. Sadly, I didn't bite but did play along for a while anyway.
After speaking to Amber, I called back several times trying to get an address and spoke to "Trent Anderson" who sounds eerily similar to the "Elliot Jacobs" who left me the original voicemail. Elliot was a true gentleman and when pressured for a company address or name of the original creditor, he instead suggested that he would see to it that personal harm came my way if I continued to ask questions or call back.
This is a common ploy by criminals attempting to extort money from people by scaring you into believing that you will be criminally charged, go to jail, lose your driver’s license, have wages garnished, be sued, and a variety of other variations on this, all for an alleged or nonexistent debt. One of the tricks they use is to call your work place repeatedly in an attempt to shame you into paying. They also use the “process server” who calls and claims he is going to serve you, but then says you could avoid it by calling another number.
Federal law (FDCPA) requires them to send you a letter (US MAIL ONLY) within 5 days of their first contact that contains their name, physical address, the creditor’s name, and the amount of the alleged debt. It also must contains “mini-Miranda” telling you that it is an attempt to collect a debt and that all information will be used for those purposes. The one other important thing that this letter must also have in it is that you have a right to dispute the debt within 30 days of receipt of the letter and if you do so, all collection activity must be stopped until the debt is verified.
Read up on your rights here, get template letters to send and also make a complaint at this government site: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/
Also file a complaint with your State Attorney General's office.
List of State AG’s offices: http://consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php
In a brief run down.....Stated that they were Mediation and are an investigative place for Alternative Financial. Gave me some old but correct info from 5 years ago but also the same year i had some stuff taking from a storage locker. Something about a payday loan not paid back and false bank info...??? Asked if i had done a payday loan from 2011 sometime i didnt answer so he talked some more and asked again to which i said "with the information you have given me i can not confirm or deny which it is your asking about". That made him mad but he then said that with all his investigative experience and resources available to him that he could see that i had no priors with the law, so, for $900 that would be not paid to him because they are not a financial handling department but would transfer me if not then he was going to turn me into the District Attorney. To which i again asked his name and company name and requested all the info he read to me to be sent to me. He ignored my request stating that the info had been attempted back in 2011. I told him that with me working in corrections I know i have the right to have information in writing sent to me. He threatened me again and hung up on me.
I've been receiving the same calls the past week. I blocked their number so it would go directly to my voicemail, i dont listen to them, i just delete them. They actually called my in-laws house number and told them i had a criminal charges against me. I LAUGHED! Never have I got into any sort of trouble with the law and don't plan on it. Anything that i could do to help out I will. I actually had to change my number today because of them.
My fiance' got several calls from this number today trying to track me down (not sure how they got his number). I called them back and was told that there was going to be a warrant for my arrest if I didn't make arrangements to pay off this payday loan from several years ago. She gave me an old address and I started to explain that I had moved and nothing had been forwarded, and she said "It's not up to them to keep track of you", and kept talking over me. I told her if they will send me the information to my current address I will check into it and if it is actually legit I would be happy to make payment (I've had several of these calls which have turned out to be bogus). She just kept telling me that if I didn't have a payment made and a plan set up by Monday afternoon the warrant would be issued, and recommended that I find representation from a lawyer. My response to her was "I don't have the money to pay you, where am I going to find the money to pay for a lawyer???". She said "Well you may want to research your resources" and hung up. After reading all of these other posts, I obviously have nothing to worry about.....