This is a fake phantom debt collection scam! This is what the Federal Trade Commission calls a phantom debt collection scam where the scammer pretends to be a debt collector, bank or credit agency, billing department, lawyer, or law enforcement and threatens to sue or arrest you using lies, harassment, and intimidation to collect on fake debts that you do not owe. Debt collection scams are very common because many people carry debts, so it is easier for scammers to phish for gullible victims. Although more than 95% of all North America phone scams originate from crowded phone rooms in India that run numerous fraud, extortion, and money laundering scams every day such as pretending to be fake pharmacies, posing as fake Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple representatives, and pretending to offer credit cards and student loan forgiveness, some of these phantom debt collection scams are committed by Americans, but many phantom debt scams also come from India scammers using text-to-speech translation software to generate a pre-recorded message without a foreign accent. Another version of these phantom debt collection scams is the frequent extortion scams perpetrated solely by Indians posing as Social Security or IRS officers threatening to sue or arrest you for fake unpaid back taxes. The scammer asks for you by your name in order to sound like a personal phone call to gain your trust, but they are auto-dialing thousands of numbers. Scammers use huge phone database listings of millions of names with phone numbers and addresses to have the autodialer automatically say your name and display the name that is currently dialed. The scammer may say "this call may be recorded" or "I am calling on a recorded line" just to sound official, but it is fake! The scammer either mentions an unpaid debt and past due amount that must be paid immediately or says that they have frozen your account due to fraudulent activity. The scammer then asks for your online banking login credentials, Social Security number and date of birth "for verification purposes", and either tells you that you can settle the debt by paying with a credit card or demands that you wire transfer the payment for the fake debt or asks for your bank account/routing number.

August 7, 2020