Head of Fake Indian Debt Collection Operation Indicted by Grand Jury
A federal grand jury Thursday charged the head of a debt collection scam operation with 21 separate counts of various federal crimes. The fake debt collection scheme, which operated out of call centers in India, was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission in April.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, Benjamin B. Wagner, Thursday announced the indictment against Kirit Patel of Tracy, Calif. The grand jury charged Patel with 21 counts of mail and wire fraud for his role in a scam that attempted to get American consumers to pay on non-existent payday loans via calls from Indian call centers.
The scheme involved more than 2.7 million calls to at least 600,000 different phone numbers nationwide. In less than two years, it fraudulently collected more than $5.2 million.
Patel’s scam was halted in April when the FTC won a court order to freeze operations and seize assets while it investigated further. At the time, the FTC specifically charged Patel and his company with violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
Often pretending to be American law enforcement agents such as “Officer Mike Johnson” or representatives of fake government agencies like the “Federal Crime Unit of the Department of Justice,” callers from India who were working with Patel would harass consumers with back-to-back calls, according to the FTC. One consumer reported that the caller threatened to have her children taken away if she did not pay, according to court documents.
All of the payments received from the call centers in India were routed through a California-based company set up by Patel.
In a follow-up story from ABC News, a lawyer for Patel noted that his client was hired to set up an American shell company, and had no idea what the call centers in India were doing.
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YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE. Now getting any money back is another issue. Don’t we just love off shore collections and are able to save all that expense….WAKE UP EVERYONE!
This hasn’t stopped anything. There are others in India still making the same calls. I received several calls from an “Officer” regarding one of my employees. The problem is that the U.S. authorities have no ability to walk into an illegal shop in India. Keep the jobs here!
$5.2 MILLION THAT THEY ARE AWARE OF?! What is wrong with the consumers that would pay that amount of money for a NON-EXISTENT pay day loan? It isn’t as if these consumers don’t have information available to them. For my 40+ years in the consumer credit industry every debtor I’ve contacted certainly knows their ‘rights’ and isn’t at all shy about it and demand confirmation. This industry has invested millions in education that I know of since the late 60′s but all the consumers that get sucked into these schemes seem to retain or know is HOW CAN I GET MY HANDS ON MORE CREDIT! It is a waste of time and money for taxpayers to continue to pay to protect these dummies and I am against any government agency doing more than minimum police work, let these consumers pay if they wish , or wake up now. The hoodlums are not going to stop, government doesn’t know about it until after the fact, and when they do bang the gavel down there is a hollow ring to the empty drum they are banging. Better they spend their time on issues where they can make a difference rather than create headlines for their resume’ and future political opportunties.
“In a follow-up story from ABC News, a lawyer for Patel noted that his client was hired to set up an American shell company, and had no idea what the call centers in India were doing.”
SO……He totally lacks intelligence in addition to being a criminal. Bummer for you Patel!
I’ve gotten these collection calls from India, both scams and what were probably not scams. Anybody that pays or loses their money to these guys, at least the ones that called me, deserve to lose their money. They are too stupid to live and function in society.
They are probably in debt by maxing out their credit card at Western Union sending 5K to some prince in Nigeria looking to leave his country with 50 million dollars in a suitcase, and just needs 5K to get some documents processed and then will split 50/50 with the kind consumer.
These collection calls from India, scams or not, are simply laughable. Why not just flush your money down the toilet, you’ll get to at least watch a cool swirl as you lose your money.
i was a victim of these people and all i did was look at the advertisements online about the payday loans and i was tld that i was going to be arrested at my jopb at 1130 am and that i was being sued for 3500.00 for a loan i never recieved. they kept telling me that my ssocial security number was being sued..i quoted the fdcpa to one guy he hung up..but the others threatened me day and night for almost a month.