Our Ask The Community forum on TrustLink received a lot of complaints about predatory debt collection schemes for payday loans. The names these scammers use that we're hearing about on TrustLink are "First State Attorney", "United State Attorney", "Federal Court of California", and other important or credible sounding names. If you have been contacted by somebody claiming to be collecting on a payday loan, follow the advice stated in the Internet Crime Complaint Center's alert, which follows below (read the whole thing!):

December 1, 2010  

Intelligence Note Prepared by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)

Telephone Collection Scam Related to Delinquent Payday Loans

The IC3 receives a high volume of complaints from victims of payday loan telephone collection scams. In these scams, a caller claims that the victim is delinquent in a payday loan and must repay the loan to avoid legal consequences. The callers purport to be representatives of the FBI, Federal Legislative Department, various law firms, or other legitimate-sounding agencies. [Read more...]