Need help w/ a zombie debt collector!

[Twitchrdrm]

Some Indian man called me today from Plaza Associates saying they are collecting a debt from 2001. I have no idea about this, he says it's from Capital One but I just recently opened a CC through them and have never had any late payments or issues. This debt does not show up on my CR's and I really don't want this to show up because I have no idea what the hell it is. Should I worry? How do I proceed? Can this show up on my CR's? Please advise!

[debtfighter]

That sounds susipicous to me. Well, I would not give them any information. Tell them to only contact you by mail. Then if they do send a collection letter DV the collection. After that length of time it isn't going to be on your credit report anymore. Strange.

[Twitchrdrm]

I basically told him I have no idea what he is talking about and that if I owe them money that he should send me something in the mail. I take it I can pretty much ignore this since it's passed the statute of limitations and nothing appears on my CR's right?

[1stStep]

Plaza Associates...aka Law Offices of Mitchell N Kay... generous contributors to my Latin America Retirement Palace.

Send them a DV letter... chances are they will violate, so document every communication with them.

[madmader]

if they are saying the debt is from 2001, there is no way legally that they can collect on it because it is way beyond the 7.5 SOL. I see you are in Illinois. I was receiving calls like this as well from a person with a thick Indian accent but would have a name like Steve, or Bill. I ended up having to change my phone number. I told them several times that if this is a valid debt, to send me a bill in the mail. They would then ask for an address, and I replied with "you should already have my address". I would hang up at that time.

[LA Lady]

They did a special about this on the news here in California last year. These ppl were claiming someone closed a cap1 acct but still had some remaining fines to be paid.

PPL panicked and paid whatever the caller was asking, then later, somehow realized it was a scam and called the police.

The news reported that the police was looking for the company responsible for these calls to potentially face prosecution.

Not sure if this is the exact same thing that you're experiencing, but it sounds suspicious.

[VADebtor]

There are several scams going around where I get called by someone with a very Anglo name and a thick Indian accent saying he is an investigator for a law firm and I will be sued tomorrow on a payday loan. They refuse to send anything in writing, and when I ask for the name of the Attorney with Bar Card number they usually say something profane and hang up.

They were using a law firm's name in Los Angeles, I looked up the firm, found that they looked way too reputable for this, and called the firm. The receptionist was very familiar with the scam and advised me my identity was probably compromised.

More recently they were pretending to be from a law firm in the midwest, the firm has a note right on their front web page saying this is a scam and please email them particulars if you encounter it.

They use a telecom provider that offers pretext numbers that appear as US numbers in caller ID but go back to India, the telco provider is very unwilling to hear any complaints.

[madmader]

yup, sounds like the same people that called me. They almost had me, because I had taken out a payday loan about the time they said I did, but I had proof that it was paid. I just about gave them 900 bucks before I started thinking about what happened...

To make a long story short, they kept calling me, and I finally had enough and changed my cell number... I haven't heard from the since... If they were true creditors, they would be able to get my # from one of my CR's...