I received this email from a former employee of the Indian Payday Loan Scammers. He describes how they operate a bit and explains that he was recruited to work for them thinking that they were a legitimate company collection on past due payday loans. Here is the full email below.

Dear Brent,

I know most of them as i have worked for/with them. 90 percent of them call from India (the cities of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Rajkot
or Pune). When i went their office for an interview, they told me that they collect money from those people who have owed money on Payday Loans, but didn’t pay back yet. I said ‘ok.’ However, when i started calling those people, most of them told me that they never got a loan.

Then I informed to my TL (team leader) about this problem, he replied ”don’t worry, they are lying, harras them” by hearing this i thought this didn’t sound legal. After that I Googled and found out that we were doing criminal activities.

Next day I went to HR department and told them I wouldn’t do this f-ing job. I tell you the whole path of how these scammers work:

1. First of all,they get the whole information about people including SSN, phone numbers (work place and home), email
   address, residence address, ip address, birthday and many more.
2. Then, they named each record ‘leads’.
3. For each lead they pay 1 U.S. dollar which are provided by another person.
4. Most of them call from a computer application named Eyebeam orXlite. They can display any number like
   0 or 911 or anyone which they want.

Do following things to stop them:

1. First of all speak english as a first language.
2. Tell them that they are calling from India (Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune or Rajkot) and I
   know that.
3. Ask them who provided you this lead or where is your closer or team leader.
4. Ask them if they are an American, then have them tell you a few lines of your national anthem.
5. Finally, tell them to stop calling or you will contact your city police via FBI.

Believe me they won’t call you again. But there are many centers in India doing this scam so may be, you can get called
from other. But each time tell them which I have mentioned above.

Forgive me because i have done this job for 7 days, but that time i didn’t know the truth.

Bye and take care.

Not sure what to make of this “confession” email, but I can tell you that what he says about how they operate and what you should do to try and get them to stop is spot-on with the advice I have given.

Please continue to post your comments about your experiences with these payday loan scammers to help others avoid being ripped off.

FTC Settlement is Largest Ever for a Debt Collection Agency

West Asset Management has agreed to pay $2.8 million, the largest civil penalty ever won by the FTC in a debt collection case, to settle charges that it violated the FDCPA when collecting debt from consumers.

West Asset Management employs over 1,500 collectors and manages collections on over 20 million delinquent accounts. The FTC alleged that West Asset Management, Inc. violated the FTC Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act when collecting debts from consumers. It would be easy to simply dismiss this as an example of a bad collection agency, but this is a major collection agency that is part of all the major trade organizations and the Federal Trade Commission continues to report more complaints about debt collectors than any other single industry.

Here are some of the FTC’s complaints against West Asset Management, all of which violated federal law:

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Debt Collection Complaints Top 2010 FTC Complaint List

The FTC has released its 2011 Fair Debt Collection Report and in 2011 the FTC received more complaints against debt collectors than any other industry. Further, the number of complaints received by the FTC concerning third-party debt collectors and creditors increased from the previous year. The FTC is required to report annually on their enforcement efforts related to the FDCPA.

The report states the number of complaints related to third-party debt collectors and in-house creditors totaled 140,036 complaints and accounted for 27 percent of all complaints the FTC received. This represents an increase in total number of complaints compared to 2009, when the FTC received 119,609 debt collection complaints, accounting for 22.8 percent of all complaints to the FTC.

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Debt Collectors looking to use Facebook, MySpace LinkedIn and other social media sites will have try another tactic. Last week, a Florida judge ordered Mark One Financial LLC, a debt collection agency, to stop using Facebook and other social media websites to locate debtors.

Mark One Financial had been sued for, among other things, using Facebook to locate a Tampa woman over her $362 late payment on her car loan. The presiding judge, W. Douglas Baird, ordered the Jacksonville, Fla. company to refrain from contacting the woman’s family or friends on Facebook.

Melanie Beacham filed a lawsuit last August against the collection agency. According to her complaint, Mark One sent several messages to Ms. Beacham herself and her family members on the Facebook networking site. Messages asked her family to have her call the agency asap about the alleged debt.

Billy Howard of the Morgan and Morgan law firm in Tampa, said the debt collectors violated his client’s privacy and the agencies actions constituted harassment under Florida law. He said that in the past few months, over a dozen potential clients have reached out to him because debt collectors have used social media sites to track them down or harass their friends and relatives.

“It’s the beginning of an epidemic,” Howard said, calling it “another weapon” unethical debt collectors can use, if allowed.

Allegedly, Mark One contacted Ms. Beacham up to 10 times a day by phone, sent text messages to her cell phone, called her neighbors and dispatched a paid courier to deliver a letter to her place of work. Last November, Mark One said it would not discuss Beacham’s case and denied breaking any Federal or Florida laws. However, the company did acknowledged that instructs its collectors to use Facebook to find people when they don’t respond to efforts at contact, like sending letters and making phone calls.

This is not an isolated case, as many consumers are filing suits relative to being contacted via social media. In one Chicago case, a man accepted a new friend request from a young woman in a bikini. But, much to his surprise, the account was a debt collector’s. The man figured this out when the new Facebook “friend” posted a message on his wall for all his friends to see. The message read: “Pay your debts, you deadbeat.”

Payday loan company Quik Cash has agreed to pay $170,000 to settle a collections fraud lawsuit filed by the Attorney General of Arizona. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2009 by former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. Goddard lost a bid for the Governor’s office last year and is well known for his battles with payday lenders in Arizona. Payday Loans are now illegal in Arizona, largely due to Goddard’s efforts to eradicate the industry.

The lawsuit alleged that Quik Cash’s collections practices “raised an onerous burden” for the customers that they sued. Quik Cash claims it did not do anything illegal, but the Attorney General disagreed. Basically, Quik Cash sued Arizona customers over payday loan debts of $500 or less. However, they sued all of their Arizona customers and even some Nevada residents in Pima and Maricopa counties.

The catch? Many of these clients received loans at locations hundreds of miles away. This made it extremely difficult for the cash-strapped payday loan or cash advance customers to attend the hearings. Therefore, default judgments and subsequent garnishments were easy for the company to obtain.

According to a press release from the Arizona AG:

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Most of the questions we get here relate to what collectors can and can’t do. Since all collection agencies in the United States are governed by the FDCPA or Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, I decided it would be good to post on the Top 5 things most consumers DON’T KNOW about the FDCPA.
 

Most consumers understand that collectors can and cannot do certain things, but sometimes they make assumptions based on logic or intuition. However, it is important to understand exactly what FDCPA covers and what it does not… in many cases it may surprise even the most educated consumers.

So, here is our list of the Top 5 Things You Did Not Know About FDCPA.

5. You can have a collector to stop calling you. Just as simple as that. All you have to do is send the collector a letter and let them know you have no intention of paying the debt or that you are requesting that they cease communications. Section 805.c is very clear on this matter:

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Portfolio Recovery Associates, or PRA, is one of the nation’s largest debt buying collection agencies. Despite doing most of their business in California, Texas, Florida and New York, the company faced 47 lawsuits in U.S. District Court for Colorado in 2010. However, here is the kicker, nearly all the lawsuits were filed by one attorney, David Larson.

PRA specializes in buying debt. Late last year, the company reported owning over $50 billion in consumer debt. However, it paid less than $2 billion to buy this debt. This is fairly typical in the debt buying and debt selling industries.

Typically, debt collection lawsuits settle very quickly, as the debt collectors want to avoid lengthy litigation and consumer attorneys are looking for a quick, easy settlement to collect their fees on. They would prefer this to protracted litigation.

It is my belief that where there is smoke there is fire. If Portfolio Recovery Associates has this many cases filed against it in Colorado, there must be something systemically wrong with their collection practices. Otherwise, why would they settle the majority of the cases. In fact, the average time to settle each of the cases filed by Larson last year was 35 days.

U.S. Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and George LeMieux (R-Fl.) recently introduced legislation to end abusive debt collection practices. The End Debt Collector Abuse Act includes several provisions designed to eliminate predatory practices, including prohibiting debt collectors from seeking arrest warrants to collect on debts and ensuring consumers are better protected against abusive debt collectors.

“This bill will protect Minnesota consumers from abusive debt collectors who often exploit loopholes in the law to make an extra buck,” said Sen. Franken. “Debt collectors often use deceptive and aggressive tactics, sometimes going after debts that have already been paid or even targeting the wrong person. This bill will protect consumers, keep debt collectors honest, and stop the misuse of law enforcement resources for private profit.”

The End Debt Collector Abuse Act adopts recommendations by the FTC and consumer rights groups that will help to protect consumers, while keeping debt collectors honest. Obviously, stopping the abuse of law enforcement and judicial resources for private profit is one aspect of this act.

A few of highlights from the proposed End Debt Collector Abuse Act are:

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Major credit card lender HSBC has been hit with a class action lawsuit over it’s collection practices and dealings with debt settlement companies. The complain was filed in New Jersey by plaintiff Chastity Bradley on behalf of the entire affected class. HSBC offers Visa, American Express and MasterCard credit card products and operates a large subprime unit under the brand name Orchard Bank.

The complaint centers around the HSBC Collection Department’s dealings with customers who have enrolled in debt settlement programs. According the the complaint, HSBC engaged in a systematic process of agreeing to settlements with debt settlement companies and taking installment payments to satisfy those settlement agreements.

Despite agreeing in writing to these agreements, HSBC would refuse to accept the FINAL settlement payment. Then, they would proceed with collecting on the full balance owed, less the payments received in the course of the payment plan.

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A former JP Morgan and Chase employee is reportedly blowing the whistle on Chase Bank’s credit card collection and debt sale practices, among other things. Linda Almonte is a former Chase mid-level manager, who was fired by Chase. She is currently pursuing a lawsuit against Chase relating to her firing.

However, she has now also filed a whistle blower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The allegations made in her complaint charge Chase with blatantly unethical and illegal practices involving its credit card debt processes. Chase, of course, denies her claims.

Excerpts from the letter sent to the SEC on Ms. Almonte’s behalf are very interesting. This passage lists the claims being made by Ms. Almonte:

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