I just received a call from a Mr. Steve Martin.  He was rude, unprofessional and very threating.  The number was 904-328-2996 of United Legal County Department.  Said I owed for a payday loan fon 2-10-06.  He kept hanging up the phone on me, saying that he thinks I am so smart trying to run for my obligations and so on.  If I could have went through that phone I would have.  I asked to speak to a supervisor and he refused and proceeded to tell me how I would be arrested and he had my Social Security Number, bank account number, email, etc.  Scary how he had all my personal information.  I thought I would research this and found several sites with fraud attached all over it.

A couple suggestions.  You may want to contact your bank with the details of this attempted extortion and ask them to change your account numbers.  Also, in addition to the federal and state law enforcement agencies listed in my message above, you may also want to file a complaint with the Florida Attorney General since the caller represented himself as calling from Jacksonville. You can file a complaint with the Florida AG online at http://myfloridalegal.com/contact.nsf/contact?Open&Section=Attorney_General

By the way, the Economic Crimes Division of the Florida Attorney General's office is aggressive in pursuing debt collection scams.

ABC News just did an investigative piece on this particular scam operation. Here's the report:  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1

ABC News just did an investigative piece on this particular scam operation. Here's the report:  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5621205&page=1

I received a similar phone call several months ago from a guy calling himself Officer Steve Martin from the United States Fraud Co.  associated with The TGF or TJF Corporation.  He said that I owed them money from an online payday lender I had gone to in 2006.  He said that there was a warrant out for my arrest and that I had an option to settle.  He wouldn't give me that much info other than he was representing US Bank or US National Bank, I can't remember which one it was, but it sounded very fishy.  I filed a complaint with the local police dept. and never heard from the guy again.