Lieberman Michaels and Kelly. A New and Ruthless Breed of Collector
71The phone rings and you let it go on voice mail! When you retreive your message it goes something like this! A business voiced fast talking woman says she is calling from the firm of Lieberman, Michaels and Kelly. She says they are handling three separate actions against your social security number and drivers license and it is imperative that you return the call so they can take a statement from you to prevent papers from being filed! They want you to assume that they are a law firm. They are not! When you call back the voice directory says they are a "legal outsourcing company." They are, in fact a third party junk debt buyer that specializes in defaulted payday loans most of which are from unlicensed lenders and are non colllectable in most states. .
You dial the extension and a collector answers and informs you that you have three actions against you for defrauding a financial institution, passing a bad check and another one that is spoken so quickly you can't understand it! He says he is there to help you work this out! If you inform this person that you need a validation in writing or have an attorney and are exercising your rights under the FDCPA, (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) he will tell you that they are not bound by the FDCPA as they are not a third party collector. A quick search on Google will prove differently! They were running an ad for "experienced collectors for a new company in Buffalo." Buffalo NY is a breeding ground for dumpster diving collectors! Two agencies were just shut down there by the police and the owner of one, a convicted felon, was arrested on gun charges. I am sure that Lieberman Michaels and Kelly had no difficulty finding out of work thugs from those places.
The more you resist the agression of the collector the more aggressive he gets until you hang up! He will then call back over and over to intimidate you and, in one case, told a person that there is a legal draft with the bank and papers would be filed within 24 hours and under the law their drivers license would be suspended if they did not respond in 24 hours and face possible jail time. This person had their attorney call the company and informed them of multple violations of Federal and State Laws. The action is still pending at the time of this publication. This clown was dumb enough to leave a voice mail! I thought the ad said "experienced."
A collector may not threaten you with a lawsuit that they have no intention of filing!
A collector must mail a validation within 5 days of first contact and cease all collection attempts while waiting for a reply for 30 days.
A collector may not threaten you with arrest or penalties that cannot be applied.
A collector may not call you repeatedly in an attempt to harass!
If you should be contacted by this company, who thinks changing their descripition will enable them to skirt the law, and they resort to threats of this type, ask for a validation letter say good by and keep a record of everyhing they say or do! Then report them to the NY State Attorney General and the FTC and the police in Buffalo N.Y. You do have rights and do not let any bottom feeder tell you that you do not! Especially Lieberman, Michael and Kelly, the great deceivers
jdiknight
No they can do nothing to you unless they file in district court in your county in Pa. Then at that point they can only collect the money plus court costs. They are in violation of the FDCPA for making threats and risk fines of 1000.00 per violation. Send them a cease communication letter and a debt validation letter. Also file a complaint with the NY Attorney Generals Office, the Buffalo NY PD, the FTC and the PA Attorney General. It also appears they tried to post all of your personal info on this site. Another violation. I will not approve that post though so no one can see it but me! I will save it for you as evidence if you file a case against them. Go to www.NACA.org and get yourself an attorney who will sue them on a contingency basis. Also read my article on this site "When the Debt Collector Calls." Also go to www.debtconsolidationcare.com and post a thread there about these bottom feeders. You will find much help on that site.Use the same sign in name as here. I will look for your post. Thanks for adding credibility to my article!
They have also called me saying that I owe them $1600.00, and I have committed bank fraud, which they referred to as a class D felony, resulting in the revocation of my drivers license for 3 years, and possible jail time. They have called my Dad and stepmother, who live out of state, and told them I was in trouble with the law for felony bank fraud. WHAT IS GOING ON????
Please take the same advice that I gave to jdiknight above! If there are enough complaints eventually they will be shut down but this could take a long time and companies like this bank on that! Also they consider lawsuits part of the cost of doing business! This bunch is on the same level as the one the Buffalo poice shut down recently. They probably hired the their old collectors. The main thing is that they are breaking the law and they are not capable of carrying out their illegal threats. You can't lose your license or be charged with a crime over a debt! Relax and just hang up until you retain an attorney!
One of their collectors has been trying to post remarks about my mother on this thread in a sick attempt to intimidate! She passed away but appently this person does not know! All the threats are blocked, saved and forwarded and the IP addresses are saved also! Internet threats are a federal crime even if veiled! When I move into my new job in Akron NY soon I will be sure to bring my Moms picture by so this can seem a little more personal.
I am so glad this is here! I was scared, nervous about losing my license and going to jail. I was on the phone giving information to this woman when my husband told me to hang up, we watched somthing like this on 20/20 she kept talking trying to get me to verify payment. I finally hung up. He got on the computer typed in there info and this is what popped up. I hopped in the car and went to the bank to cancel my card. Wow...what jerks they are. Again glad you posted this, thanks!
This is better late than never but they contacted me about two weeks ago and I give them my bank card information to make a payment. But now that I think about it, I don't remeber what they told me I owe for and who the company was and I asked the guy I spoke with to email me or send me a letter confirming what exactly I owe but I have yet to received a letter from them. How do I prevent them from getting more money from my accoutn beside closing my account. The more I read your articles, everything just feel wrong. They should at lease have mail me the letter I requested I have pay all my loan with the company I originally borrow the $$ from so I don't know what I was thinking when they called me. Maybe because I was at work and they called my dad and he got really nervous and called me and very worried. I called them from work and that is how this whole mess started.
My husband just got a call from these people telling him he faces 3 felony charges and suspension of his license for a payday loan they said was never paid back. I have bank statements to prove that the money was paid back and when we go to call the company we borrowed the money from another company now is using this number. The sad part is my husband was a afraid with his line of work he would not have a job if this was to happen so he agreed to pay what they said he owes. They have already taken $200.00 from our checking account and as soon as he told me about it I said it was a scam and started doing research on this company and found bad information about them. They keep telling us to have our attorney call them and so far per our request have not sent any proof of documentation to our attorney either. I know that they can not suspend a driver's license for debt collection. The keep insisting on not giving us any information, but we went to the bank and had a stop put on this company and they will be fileing the paper work against them to try and get our money back. I told my husband that no matter what they say, the need to take us to court to prove their case, his boss will understand when all this come our if the case may be. They told my husband they will start calling our references and the scary part is they had names of the people and number that we would have used on the original application. We have called each of them and told them not to give any info about us and tell them that we are going to have them investigated.
I posted something earlier today about L.M.K. & Associates and just a few minutes ago they faxed something to me but it still shows no proof of the debt. What do I do next. All it states is the company we borrowed from, amount, claim number, client number and the installment terms my husband agreed to. It was signed Yours Sincerely,
Administrative Department
L.M.K. & Associates
They did put the line in here how this is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obrained will be used for that purpose. Am I wrong or not, but I am not sure this is enough legal proof of the debt they say that I owe. They still have not provided me with the number or addrss to the place that we borrowed the money from. I also noticed the number and address on the fax was not the one that is online or the number they gave us...HMMM! Not sure what to do. I can not afford an attorney or my husbands job since he is in law enforcement.
jdiknght 2 years ago
I have received a call from this firm today. I do owe money to the lenders they are working with. They are threatening me with the 3 charges mentioned above and also the Driver License Suspension. Is this something they can do in Pennsylvania?