Discover Card fraud? Not sure how to label this.

[aquart]

Got a call from a man with an educated voice saying he was calling from a law firm(?) and gave the name but I stupidly failed to write it down and he wanted $1700 from me for a "summary judgment" on my Discover card. Now this judgment was handed down in 2002 after a last payment of $1000 dollars leaving a $700 balance. Say what? I didn't give anyone a dime in 2002 and I don't think I've had a Discover card for decades. I had one, never used it, and I guess I never told them to close it. Just kicked it out of my wallet.

I do not ever recall receiving mail from Discover. Certainly not a summary judgment.

So I called Discover and they say they sold my account in 2002 to Vision Management and that is all they know. They have no other records.

Is it possible that they sold a dormant, empty account? The caller had my address and social security number. But not one detail about the account such as who paid this money in 2002 and what bank it was drawn on or what the charges were originally for.

Has anyone here had a similar call? Is this senior citizen-targeted fraud? Or, and this would be a nightmare, did I make a small purchase that I forgot because I didn't use the card and the interest mounted to the sky?

I have no idea what's going on. The only thing I'm sure of is that nobody in my family made any kind of payment in 2002.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. So Discover got a $700 judgment against you?

You would have gotten notice of this summary judgment from a court, not Discover.

But, if that's the case, they can attach your funds to get the money from you, yeah.................................

[GodlyDemocrat]

2. You would have had to have been served if you were sued

Then, if you did not appear/respond to the court a summary judgment would be entered.

This is a scam.

[RebelOne]

16. True. I had a judgment against me

and it was served by a sheriff's deputy.

[MissB]

3. Big scam

I'm on mobile device so it's a pita to find a link for you but I swear there was a scam alert on msnbc's website in their money section just last week. I'll go see if I can find it.

[MissB]

7. Can't find it, but here a link that may help

http://credit.about.com/od/debtcollection/qt/debtvalidation.htm

Another poster mentioned that you can request that they show proof of the debt (validate it). Don't hand them any money before checking out the fair debt collections practice act.

The article I referenced in the previous post was about a warning from maybe the FTC? that users of a certain type of company (maybe payday loans?) were being targeted. However, I can't seem to get google to work in my favor tonight....

[Lagomorph]

4. fishy

Don't give him any information.

His seven years are up, very shortly.

Demand proof, in writing, of anything. Get details about who, what where when & why.

[aquart]

11. Just checked. 7 years doesn't apply.

In NY, they have SIX years to sue, but after a summary judgment has been entered, they have 20 years to collect. They claim the summary judgment was entered in 2002 right after a partial payment.

Nobody I know paid them anything in 2002. I asked for every scrap of paperwork they have.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. This is a long running scam. Been reported all over for ages.

Collection agencies buy up dormant accounts, sometimes accounts that have been paid.
They buy them up for pennies on the dollar, then start robocalling people demanding payment
OVER THE Phone.
The fact they have your name and SS # is meaningless, anyone can get that from a zillion places.

They are required by law to send you a letter if you request it.Said letter has to contain the amount due, history of account and court judgement.

Google around, you will find lots of complaints about this and lots of ways to handle it.

But, sometimes, these guys have been known to attach bank accounts.

You might want to move your money until you get it cleared up.

[aquart]

14. I can't move my money. A. I have none. B. It's direct deposit.

C. It's a credit union account and if I close it I can't get back in.

[ejpoeta]

6. i have a few questions.....

First of all... what state are you in... I live in NY and the attorney general has gone after some debt collectors and is looking to have 100,000 default judgements thrown out. We had an incidence where we got notice of a default judgement from these people we had never heard of and they siezed our bank account. Bob had to go to court and have the judgement thrown out because we were never served.

No matter whether you had used the card or not... or whatever.. you have a right to have any debt validated under the federal debt collection practices act (FDCPA). They have to prove that they have a right to collect any debt. Also, sometimes these debt collectors will claim to be an attorney, which is a big no no if they are acting as a debt collector. A guy in Buffalo got arrested for having his debt collectors claim to be lawyers or police officers and threaten to arrest people.

Here is a link to the NYS attorney general thing: http://www.nydebthelp.com/home.html

and here is a link where bob got a lot of help fighting Unifund when they got a default judgement and seized our account: www.creditwrench.com.

If you need any help or have any questions, feel free to pm me and I can have my husband talk to you. He has become well educated on this issue since our run in with these hoodlums.

[pipi_k]

9. I have a post below giving some basics on something that happened

to me in 2005, and I did end up contacting the AG of New York State, who very quickly and efficiently took care of the problem.

One company (there were two in cahoots with each other) was in NY, the other was in IL.

The AG in IL also did a fine job...

:)

[aquart]

10. Memory, memory. I THINK the first thing he claimed was to be from a law firm.

But swear to it? My memory sucks.

[pipi_k]

8. Yep, it's entirely possible that they sold an empty account...

or maybe near empty, anyway.

What these Zombie Debt Collectors (Google that term) do is add all sorts of charges and fees and come up with a figure that is outlandish. Sometimes the person they contact isn't even the correct person.

But anyway, CC companies sometimes sell old accounts for pennies on the dollar to these scumbuckets.

I had a nasty experience in 2005 with one.


Admittedly, years ago I had some very bad credit problems, but in the intervening years I cleaned it up and my credit is now great. The company that contacted me tried to say I owed THEM over $5000. No fucking way, Jose. I owed money to Citibank, and it was nowhere NEAR that much and it was written off.

Anyway, I did lots of research and discovered ways to get those fuckers to stop calling me. Contacted a few Attorneys General, who contacted the company (and its cohort in another state) and they closed the entire thing.

Oh...and the "debt" they said I "owed" them?

Nearly 20 fucking years old. WAYYYY past the statute of limitations in my state. Rotten bastards.

Anyway, if you are ever ever contacted by anyone claiming you owe them money...even if you think you might...do NOT admit to it, and do NOT offer to make payments. That would open the whole thing right back up and it would end up appearing on your credit report.

anyway, do Google "Zombie Debt" and you'll see what I mean...

[lonestarnot]

12. If you weren't personally served, you should not worry.

But I'm not a lawyer, so that is not legal advise. :hi:

[ejpoeta]

15. Well, they have to serve you, but it doesn't mean they can't get a judgement against

you. Though the spotlight is on that shit right now with many companies in NY. Bob discovered what they were doing when he was dealing with a default judgement we got a few years ago.... he pulled a number of supposed affidavits of service, and they were very interesting. We figured there was no way they could have served ALL the people they claimed they served in NY in one day. And then go down to Long Island or where ever it was down that way to do the affidavit. He got the judgement set aside.

[whoneedstickets]

13. If it's not in writing, the appropriate response to this request is....

...Go fuck yourself.