I think I may have been scammed. Please help!!

[Anonymous]

My wife actually fell for this same type of scam on monday night.  They called her Mom in a different state first, to ask if she lived there still, and then called and left my wife a message.  The message said that they were going to serve her at our house between 3-5 pm the next day otherwise they will go to her place of employment to serve her there.  Since we did have a mess back in 2008 and weren't able to address all of it, I told her to call and find out who they were trying to collect for.  BIG MISTAKE. 

They told her that we owed $5k to US Bank but would settle for $1800.  We haven't had an account with them since 2008 and in MN the SOL is 6 years.  She told them she was going to talk to me and get back to them.  He then told her that if she got off the phone without agreeing to a payment plan that it would go back to $5k and they would serve her papers.  She panicked and agreed to $50 payment now and then $150 per month.  She gave him a credit card for the payments and they processed the first $50 that night. 

I was worried that the payment plan would restart the SOL and they would be able to pursue legal action again.  When I got home and listened to the message and read the email detailing the payment plan it all seemed really fishy.  After researching the company, Great Lakes Capital Management, I had read other people scammed by them.  We called the CC Company and cancelled the card and contested the charge as fraudulent.  I sent them a reply email detailing violations of FDCPA, told them that all future communication would need to be in writing, and told them we had cancelled the card.  I also searched the county records for any possible court records and found none. We haven't heard from them yet and I don't anticipate any further contact.

We had had no prior contact in years from US Bank and the amount wouldn't have been close, even with penalties and fees added.  

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

We called the CC Company and cancelled the card and contested the charge as fraudulent.  I sent [the scammers] a reply email detailing violations of FDCPA, told them that all future communication would need to be in writing, and told them we had cancelled the card.

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When most people talk about cancelling a card, they mean closing it.  Is that what you mean?  Or do you just mean that the CC company is (as a result of the fraud) sending you a card with a new number?

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

Expiration of SOL does not preclude continued collection attempts.

It only precludes their ability to file and obtain a civil judgment ordering payment of the debt.

A few states have their own enhanced debt collection practices statutes that do require notice to the consumer if the SOL has clearly expired, but there is no general requirement for such notice on the federal level, and thus no violation of federal statute or regs by not providing such notice to the consumer.

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Thank you for explaining the effects of SOL and the differences between state and federal governments.

[Anonymous]

Yes we closed it.  It was a crappy sub-prime card that we were going to close soon anyway.

[Anonymous]

I bet this is the result of the Equifax data breach. They have your history and know enough to make you think it's a real collection by naming accounts you really had.

[DaveInAZ]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I bet this is the result of the Equifax data breach. They have your history and know enough to make you think it's a real collection by naming accounts you really had.

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Not necessarily. I had a debt collector call me this week and threaten legal action - for a debt allegedly owed by my sister!

He called me on my cell phone, which I thought was strange as my phone is a Tracfone pre-paid, so the # isn't listed anywhere. He went a spiel about an $1800 debt owed to Huntington Bank, I cut him off and told him I've never done any business with Huntington Bank. He replies that the debt is owed by Mary XXX, my sister, who lives in Ohio, I'm in Arizona.

I reply: "You're calling me about a debt owed by someone named Mary? You have the wrong #, my name isn't Mary and there's no one here named Mary".

He replies: "We know she's your sister. Do you want your sister to go to jail?"

I think for a second and reply: "So look, I don't know anyone named Mary, and you should know that it's against the law to contact anyone about a debt except the person who actually owes the debt. Don't ever call me again!", and I hang up.

I got to thinking. I know Lexis Nexis connects me to my sister when we both had the same address - our parents address in Ohio, in the 1980s. I occasionally get questions about her in security screening questions and it always scares the crap out of me as she has terrible credit and usually has more than one bill collector chasing after her. And my cell phone#? It is my contact phone # for all my credit and banking, and I recently pulled my EWS report: BoA, Cap One 360 banking, Discover Bank & Chase all report my contact info - name, mailing address, email address, and phone #, which is my cell phone #. It's not any stretch to think that Lexis Nexis now has that info.Or in the least the big collection agencies subscribe to both Lexis Nexis and EWS. Our family name is pretty unusual, so it's not hard to make a connection.

Gee, thanks BoA, Cap One, Disco, Chase & EWS for putting my personal, private contact info out there. 

[Anonymous]

Yeah that's another way, and no doubt this kind of information could be obtained through other services, data breached, hacked email accounts, etc.

I guess the lesson is there is a new and more sophisticated type of scam running now where people have a lot of real information to use to try and make you believe it's legit.

Be very skeptical of any surprise collection where you didn't know you owed money, and EVEN IF YOU DID, always make your payment by independently contacting the party you owe money to, and never pay somebody who called you out of the blue.