Phony debt collectors raise fear of national data breach Your Money By Kelvin Collins| Special Columnist Monday, September 07, 2009 The Better Business Bureau is issuing a national alert about phony debt collectors who are calling consumers and saying they have defaulted on a payday loan and will be arrested if they don't pay immediately. Claiming to be lawyers, the scammers say they are with the "Financial Accountability Association" or the "Federal Legislation of Unsecured Loans." They have a disconcerting amount of personal information on the people they call. The BBB is concerned that this may be the result of a data breach. Thousands of people may have had their personal information compromised, and given the scammers' tactics, it appears that those who have previously used payday loan services could be particularly at risk. According to reports received by the BBB and posted online, the scammers accuse the victim of defaulting on a payday loan and claim they are being sued. The phony debt collector threatens that, if the victim doesn't pay as much as $1,000 immediately via wire or by providing bank account or credit card numbers, he or she will be arrested and extradited to California within the hour to stand trial. The scammers often have the victim's Social Security, bank account or driver's license numbers, as well as home addresses, employer information and even the names of friends and professional references. THE BBB OFFERS THE following advice to consumers if they receive a suspicious telephone call about an outstanding debt: - Ask the debt collector to provide documentation that substantiates the debt. - Do not provide or confirm bank account, credit card or other personal information over the phone until you have confirmed the legitimacy of the call. - File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission if the caller is abusive, threatening or otherwise violates federal telemarketing laws. - File a complaint with the BBB if you believe a debt collector is trying to scam you. According to complaints online, phone numbers that the scammers are calling from include: (949) 468-5107, (415) 200-0274, (415) 200-0274, (213) 784-5745, (408) 715-1614 and many others.
Not good for those who are called in this scam, however it could be useful in general to change the rules of assignment. As long as assignments were between businesses that were assigning their own inventory or the like, there would be two businesses involved and presumably they could operate with some level of honesty and integrity or one would sue the other. Even if they were assigning consumer debt, they would generally take it on before a default and would operate as original creditors. Everyone generally had some idea of what was going on. But when it became common to sell alleged consumer debt to anyone with no real proof that the debt actually existed, this opened up room for unscrupulous dealings like never before. As far as Dumb Bob can see, the scammers in this example behave exactly like most JDBs with the only difference being that these scammers don't really own a valid debt. But since JDBs essentially never prove that they own a valid debt, from the perspective of the consumer, there isn't really any difference. For all the consumer knows, the scammers could simply have the information about a valid debt but not really own it. So even if the consumer knows that he owes a debt, he can't know that he owes the debt to those who call him claiming they own the debt. Obviously this needs fixing and the more completely bogus scams like the one described above exist, the more this will pressure legislative action as well as judges to simply follow the law and require actual proof when it is demanded.
All the more reason to ALWAYS dispute and request validation of a debt whenever you get a letter from a CA/JDB. I don't mind paying my debts, but I'm not going to send money to anyone who sends me a letter or calls me on the phone unless I'm sure they are the person/org. to whom I should send it. The last CA I questioned about this mysteriously disappeared. I wonder why?
