Dec 4, 2007
If you answer, the caller will ask you for information about your home mortgage. The call is from an Indian call center operated by "Smart Funding Corp." d/b/a AMR Fundings (http://www.smartfundingcorp.com/), (http://65.248.36.75/amr/index.htm) with an address at:
1809 E. Dyer Rd, Ste 301
Santa Ana, CA.
tel. (949) 838-1819.
AMR Home Loans, or Smart Fundings, is a self-described "aggressive mortgage company" (http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/rej/465365093.html) that in 2006 obtained financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States for a call center system in India. (this explains the heavy accents -- http://www.exim.gov/article.cfm/985AA5C3-DBF6-0254-D0B3C0405CED97BE/). Their call center spoofs the numbers of call centers in the United States so that the recipient's caller ID shows up with a U.S. phone number or "Unavailable ID." (See also http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-214-270-1696). They use old mortgage data for their caller database, their Indian telemarketers use fake American names such as "Daniel Parker" and "Mack Logan," and they do not follow requests to be placed on "do not call" lists. I must have received 500 calls from them in the past year.
Is their activity illegal? What can I do about these calls?