Need advice/info for debt collector calls.

[JALLEN]

I have 3 telephones here. One is an 830 area code, geographically correct. I also have phone numbers in 619 area code, and 858 area code, both San Diego area numbers. It is no big deal to get a number with any area code you wish. I take my 619 number with me when I travel, anywhere I go. I used to do this so people in San Diego had no expense in calling me where ever I was, but now that long distance is not always additional charge, that benefit is diminishing. A great many people I know have cell phones from where they used to live, not geographically correct. I doubt one can rely on area codes as being informative of the callers location any more.

If I call you using my 619 number, sitting here in my hill country home, is that spoofing? It looks like I am in a two party state. Do you complain to the FCC?

No, because you are prohibited from using misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value. IOW, you must tell the truth only when you intend to lie. If I am calling merely to be adamant, invite you to a social gathering, etc no problem.

I'm just being a lawyer again, giving advice, to get consent for your taping on the tape. If there is a particular reason to not do do, then you will have to carefully review all the circumstances to be sure to comply. The penalty for messing up is that you cannot use the tape or what is recorded for any purpose without admitting to have messed up.

Draw no inferences from me being aware of only one case. This was not an issue I dealt with but once, and I have had no occasion to be familiar with these things before this thread.

BTW, I must remind you that I am not a lawyer anymore, although I was for 40 years.

[mojo84]

I think there is a difference between having a phone that was issued a number based on a location where it was issued or used and intentionally going out of one's way to mislead someone into answering a call.

If someone is going to mislead me by misidentifying themselves by using my home number as their caller ID number, I'm not too worried about about protecting their right to be notified about me recording them.

Seems like one would take a stronger position about companies misleading people in order to trick them into answering the phone than someone recording and documenting a discussion.

[Mike S]

Thank you everyone for the help and advice. I had no idea of the technology available to spoof ID. My wife is going to contact both the AG and any federal agency that is appropriate to make complaints.
I'll try to answer some of the questions s I recall them. Not necessarily in order.

Evergreen Acquisitions is a real entity and though difficult to find. JAllen posted this link
http://www.egacq.com/services.html

We answered the phone because it was a familiar number. After my post I looked at our call ID list on our home phone and they called from several different numbers but left no messages. Yesterday during the drive home my wife missed a call and message on her cell phone from Evergreen regarding a fraudulent attempt to gain credit under her name had occurred and that she was required to call back to confirmed her name, address, SS#on the drive home had. I was a pre-recorded robot call and of course she ignored it. It was an 844 AC but several AC's show u, 844, 202, 256, and of course our own. We intend to ignore their calls.

Her brother is not capable of remembering if this is legitimate or not. He ran way from a home three years ago and married a woman he met online who was 35 years younger than him. He left her about two years later and my wife assisted him in getting a divorce after crashed physically and mentally in Galveston in May of 2014. There's much I won't go into but she was taking him to Louisiana to gamble since he had very generous SS and VA pensions. He more than likely made loans but we have no documentation. He ended up losing his VA pension and was hit with a $63M demand to repay it. We had to support him to get into a privately run assisted living home while my wife tried to get his pension reinstated which took almost a year. If this is a legitimate debt she wants to pay it, but I reminded her that this debt if real has written off by the original lender and sold for pennies on the dollar to this debt collector.

I assured my wife that you can't be arrested and jailed for a defaulting on a debt, except under certain circumstances where intentional fraud is involved.

As far as knowing our phone numbers there's not a good explanation (legal) that we can come up with. Her DL could be a source but there's no good explanation for how they would have it. The only connection they could look to between my wife and her brother would be her name and his in VA and SS data. Our home phone number is unlisted and my wife's cell phone is not under her name. All of our phone numbers are registered on "no call lists". Apparently they didn't know he doesn't live with us though my wife told the first caller he was in a home. No way that connection for her name and his would be known to them. The guy yesterday still insisted I was him since he called our house phone.

I have recorded phone calls before and was under the impression only one party notification was all that was required in Texas. I am not aware of federal requirements for notification. I've seen Judge Judy mention one party and two party states for phone call recording. I assumed it was legal.

I going to buy a boat horn.
Again thanks everyone for the help. I'll update with any significant info as we proceed;

BTW during the original call I was contradicting what the guy was stating and repeatedly advised her to hang up. She tries to be nice to people but said next time she'll take my advice. WOW!

Please ignore any further calls or correspondence from this company. It is a fraud. A big indicator from their website is the extremely generic nature of everything on it. Dig a bit deeper, & the address listed is only a couple blocks from the White House in D.C., and is actually a P.O. Box INSIDE of a UPS Store (the UPS Store provides a cut out address, appearing to be an actual street address with a suite #). They can actually be located anywhere in the world, as the UPS Store offers a mail forwarding service. Hopefully this helps, & rest assured that you're not the only family to have something like this happen.

[mojo84]

Thank you everyone for the help and advice. I had no idea of the technology available to spoof ID. My wife is going to contact both the AG and any federal agency that is appropriate to make complaints.
I'll try to answer some of the questions s I recall them. Not necessarily in order.

Evergreen Acquisitions is a real entity and though difficult to find. JAllen posted this link
http://www.egacq.com/services.html

We answered the phone because it was a familiar number. After my post I looked at our call ID list on our home phone and they called from several different numbers but left no messages. Yesterday during the drive home my wife missed a call and message on her cell phone from Evergreen regarding a fraudulent attempt to gain credit under her name had occurred and that she was required to call back to confirmed her name, address, SS#on the drive home had. I was a pre-recorded robot call and of course she ignored it. It was an 844 AC but several AC's show u, 844, 202, 256, and of course our own. We intend to ignore their calls.

Her brother is not capable of remembering if this is legitimate or not. He ran way from a home three years ago and married a woman he met online who was 35 years younger than him. He left her about two years later and my wife assisted him in getting a divorce after crashed physically and mentally in Galveston in May of 2014. There's much I won't go into but she was taking him to Louisiana to gamble since he had very generous SS and VA pensions. He more than likely made loans but we have no documentation. He ended up losing his VA pension and was hit with a $63M demand to repay it. We had to support him to get into a privately run assisted living home while my wife tried to get his pension reinstated which took almost a year. If this is a legitimate debt she wants to pay it, but I reminded her that this debt if real has written off by the original lender and sold for pennies on the dollar to this debt collector.

I assured my wife that you can't be arrested and jailed for a defaulting on a debt, except under certain circumstances where intentional fraud is involved.

As far as knowing our phone numbers there's not a good explanation (legal) that we can come up with. Her DL could be a source but there's no good explanation for how they would have it. The only connection they could look to between my wife and her brother would be her name and his in VA and SS data. Our home phone number is unlisted and my wife's cell phone is not under her name. All of our phone numbers are registered on "no call lists". Apparently they didn't know he doesn't live with us though my wife told the first caller he was in a home. No way that connection for her name and his would be known to them. The guy yesterday still insisted I was him since he called our house phone.

I have recorded phone calls before and was under the impression only one party notification was all that was required in Texas. I am not aware of federal requirements for notification. I've seen Judge Judy mention one party and two party states for phone call recording. I assumed it was legal.

I going to buy a boat horn.
Again thanks everyone for the help. I'll update with any significant info as we proceed;

BTW during the original call I was contradicting what the guy was stating and repeatedly advised her to hang up. She tries to be nice to people but said next time she'll take my advice. WOW!

Please ignore any further calls or correspondence from this company. It is a fraud. A big indicator from their website is the extremely generic nature of everything on it. Dig a bit deeper, & the address listed is only a couple blocks from the White House in D.C., and is actually a P.O. Box INSIDE of a UPS Store (the UPS Store provides a cut out address, appearing to be an actual street address with a suite #). They can actually be located anywhere in the world, as the UPS Store offers a mail forwarding service. Hopefully this helps, & rest assured that you're not the only family to have something like this happen.

This further strengthens my position about spoofing phone numbers with the intent to mislead and misrepresent. I don't think a judge or jury in the country would fault someone for recording a phone call from such a company.

[puma guy]

Last night Evergreen Acquisitions called our home phone just before 7PM, which I ignored. The ID indicated a 281 AC along with their company name and as soon as the answer machine picked up the call they hung up and 3 seconds later they called again. I answered and before the party could say anything I told him "Do not ever call this number again. You have been put on notice to cease calls" As I was hanging up the phone I heard him ask for her brother by name. Immediately my wife got a call on her cell phone which she ignored. Minutes later my wife was talking to our daughter who said she had a call coming in. My wife asked her if it was the same number we were receiving calls from and sure enough it was. My wife has filed complaints at both state and federal level against Evergreen Acquisitions so we'll see where it leads. We have blocked the numbers we've received calls from but they just keep changing them. I looked up the last number they used and it actually has a person's name attached to it with at least 6 local addresses. Further details as they come.

[treadlightly]

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a very foreign sounding individual who told me he was in the Master Tech Support Center and that the Master Internet Servers had detected my computer downloading malware.

This malware, he said, couldn't be removed. No way. It COULD NOT be removed, so he was going to walk me through removing it. Er, right.

Was I at my computer? Yes, although, truth to tell, that was a little fib. Could I press the windows flag key and run, what did that say?

He had me run eventvwr, which on every wheezing Windows box in existence will show warnings and errors. When I told him I saw a very serious looking warning he asked me to read it to him.

Wow, I said, this is incredible. My computer says this call is a scam and you are a thief. He started to lay into me so I took inspiration from the Monty Python Dead Parrot skit and talked right over him. "My computer says you are unclean, that your brains are mostly pig droppings except for the parts that are Kosher dill pickles. Your computing skills are on par with your veracity. You are how perfectly good bridges become soiled with KKK slogans. If RAM were infinite you would still page fault."

I was just about to tell him it was his personal digestive tract that blew the fabled ill wind that blows no good, but he hung up. I was just getting started.

At least I took three minutes of his time and slowed his digital mayhem.

If you ever get one of these calls, the general flow is they will have you go to a website that offers screen and keyboard sharing. You give them control, they download and launch a utility that will do something evil, like encrypt critical parts of your hard drive. Your data is dead to you unless you buy the decrypt key for a couple of hundred bucks. More, if they decide to make further use of the banking information they get from you.

There are no Master Internet Servers. There is no one who will take a complaint about this sort of scam. I recommend eroding away their time to hurt people, if you have a spare moment to lead them on.

[rotor]

Everyone gets these calls. I recently got one saying it was from the IRS and I was getting sued. Yesterday a call from "Microsoft" that my computer was infected. Telling them to remove you from their list doesn't work. Tell them that you are busy right now, get a number that you can call them back at their home later in the day and just play the game. Sometimes it is fun just listening to them squirm.

[SewTexas]

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a very foreign sounding individual who told me he was in the Master Tech Support Center and that the Master Internet Servers had detected my computer downloading malware.

This malware, he said, couldn't be removed. No way. It COULD NOT be removed, so he was going to walk me through removing it. Er, right.

Was I at my computer? Yes, although, truth to tell, that was a little fib. Could I press the windows flag key and run, what did that say?

He had me run eventvwr, which on every wheezing Windows box in existence will show warnings and errors. When I told him I saw a very serious looking warning he asked me to read it to him.

Wow, I said, this is incredible. My computer says this call is a scam and you are a thief. He started to lay into me so I took inspiration from the Monty Python Dead Parrot skit and talked right over him. "My computer says you are unclean, that your brains are mostly pig droppings except for the parts that are Kosher dill pickles. Your computing skills are on par with your veracity. You are how perfectly good bridges become soiled with KKK slogans. If RAM were infinite you would still page fault."

I was just about to tell him it was his personal digestive tract that blew the fabled ill wind that blows no good, but he hung up. I was just getting started.

At least I took three minutes of his time and slowed his digital mayhem.

If you ever get one of these calls, the general flow is they will have you go to a website that offers screen and keyboard sharing. You give them control, they download and launch a utility that will do something evil, like encrypt critical parts of your hard drive. Your data is dead to you unless you buy the decrypt key for a couple of hundred bucks. More, if they decide to make further use of the banking information they get from you.

There are no Master Internet Servers. There is no one who will take a complaint about this sort of scam. I recommend eroding away their time to hurt people, if you have a spare moment to lead them on.

that is awesome!!

[carlson1]

I am not an attorney, but I don't think telling them "not to call" is sufficient. I believe the correct way is to advise them by certified mail "not to call again." Of course if it is not a real debt collector they will ignore all laws just like all other criminals.

[jimlongley]

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a very foreign sounding individual who told me he was in the Master Tech Support Center and that the Master Internet Servers had detected my computer downloading malware.

. . .

Wow, I said, this is incredible. My computer says this call is a scam and you are a thief. He started to lay into me so I took inspiration from the Monty Python Dead Parrot skit and talked right over him. "My computer says you are unclean, that your brains are mostly pig droppings except for the parts that are Kosher dill pickles. Your computing skills are on par with your veracity. You are how perfectly good bridges become soiled with KKK slogans. If RAM were infinite you would still page fault."

. . .

There are no Master Internet Servers. There is no one who will take a complaint about this sort of scam. I recommend eroding away their time to hurt people, if you have a spare moment to lead them on.

I have gotten to the point where I actually enjoy talking to those guys. I ask them for their ID number, which they usually make one up, and then I ask them for the "alphabetical departmental security prefix" and other inane bafflegab. They often insist on telling me that my computer is "spamming the internet" at which point I ask them which computer, and their response is invariably "The Microsoft computer" at which point I ask which "Microsoft computer as I have several, and then they state "the one that is spamming the internet" or some such, and I ask them for the "dotted quad notation" address of the computer they are referring to, and so on.

One of them recently hung up on me after saying some obscene things, and then he called back just to say more obscene things. I have both calls recorded and have filed a police report because my telephone provider will not do a trace without an active police report, and I have requested a full trace of the calls be provided to the police (they claim they are not obligated to give the info to me) but it has been months and I haven't heard anything.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes the FCC has rules about Caller ID spoofing, good luck enforcing them.

CID is kind of a fun subject for me because I was there at the beginning as a Transmission Technical Support Engineer for NY Telephone Company. In 1993, when CID was in its infancy, I married my sweetheart and we moved to Illinois so I could teach telecommunications classes to the phone companies. We, as new home owners, got hundreds of telemarketer calls and I had a standard script that I responded to them with. One person who worked for a major national insurance company apparently thought that it would be quite funny to call me on his speaker phone over and over to entertain his friends in the office, using silly or obscene names to identify himself so they could hear me make my speech.

He apparently had never heard of Caller ID, so when I filed a complaint with the police for his harassment, using the Caller ID info and recordings of the calls and they showed up to arrest him, he was very surprised.

It's possible he was even more surprised when, after he was convicted, he lost his insurance licenses.

[treadlightly]

CID is kind of a fun subject for me because I was there at the beginning as a Transmission Technical Support Engineer for NY Telephone Company.

If you've never read The Hacker Crackdown, it's a free download - http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html.

In a nutshell, a string of unrelated crumbs leads federal law enforcement from NYNEX to Texas where the Honorable Sam Sparks, demonstrating only feeble higher brain function, issued a no-knock seizure warrant to confiscate a book that they thought was computer software of an impossible nature, resulting in the first-ever successful civil rights lawsuit against the Secret Service and the creation of The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Kids with Commodore 64's playing with things like translations and SS7 in New York nearly kills a business in Austin - better than fiction, at least for those not suffering the tale firsthand.

[puma guy]

I am not an attorney, but I don't think telling them "not to call" is sufficient. I believe the correct way is to advise them by certified mail "not to call again." Of course if it is not a real debt collector they will ignore all laws just like all other criminals.

Actually it is sufficient since a court ruling eliminated the need for written notification. You just have to prove you told them. We haven't installed a recorder yet and my wife is trying to figure out how to record phone calls on her IPhone. I don't know if that's even possible. We spoke to a lawyer who said they have committed enough violations to make a handsome lawsuit, but we need proof.

[MONGOOSE]

APPS

[mojo84]

I am not an attorney, but I don't think telling them "not to call" is sufficient. I believe the correct way is to advise them by certified mail "not to call again." Of course if it is not a real debt collector they will ignore all laws just like all other criminals.

Actually it is sufficient since a court ruling eliminated the need for written notification. You just have to prove you told them. We haven't installed a recorder yet and my wife is trying to figure out how to record phone calls on her IPhone. I don't know if that's even possible. We spoke to a lawyer who said they have committed enough violations to make a handsome lawsuit, but we need proof.

There are quite a few call recorder apps on the Android Play Store. I bet there are also the Apple Store (or whatever it's called) as well. Just search for "call recorder". Some of them will automatically record all calls and some you can turn it on and off per call. I mentioned this earlier and then we got off track on what is legal and what is preferred in what states and so on.

As long as you or your wife is a party to the call, I do not see any problem recording calls, especially in Texas since it is a one party state. Best of luck in dealing with these idiots as what they are doing just doesn't pass the smell test.

[Glockster]

I am not an attorney, but I don't think telling them "not to call" is sufficient. I believe the correct way is to advise them by certified mail "not to call again." Of course if it is not a real debt collector they will ignore all laws just like all other criminals.

Actually it is sufficient since a court ruling eliminated the need for written notification. You just have to prove you told them. We haven't installed a recorder yet and my wife is trying to figure out how to record phone calls on her IPhone. I don't know if that's even possible. We spoke to a lawyer who said they have committed enough violations to make a handsome lawsuit, but we need proof.

The iPhone app that I use and like a lot is indeed called CallRecorder. eAsy to use, easy to export audio files and I have used it successfully for evidence in legal matters.