WASHINGTON/NEW YORK,Febrauary22,2012: A US trade committee has cracked down on a California-based company that siphoned off $5 million using call centers in India by making fake, often threatening, debt collection calls to over 10,000 customers in the USA. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has already filed a suit against American Credit Crunchers and a related company, Ebeeze LLC, and their owner, Varang Thaker.This is a first-of-its-kind case that has come to light in the US, in which call centers in India have been used to make fake debt collection calls here. In its complaint, FTC says consumers received over 20 million collection calls from India and that since January 2010, more than $5 million was siphoned off from victims, with collectors demanding between $300 and $2,000 per call."This is a brazen operation based on pure fraud, and the FTC is committed to shutting it down," said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. The information submitted by consumers who applied online for various loans found its way into the hands of the defendants, FTC officials said.According to the FTC's complaint, Thaker obtained information - often including the social security and bank account numbers - submitted by consumers who had inquired about, applied for or obtained online payday loans.Thaker worked with tele-callers in India who called consumers using deceptive statements and threats to convince them to pay debts that were not owed or that they were not authorized to collect, the FTC alleges. Thaker profited handsomely from this scheme, according to documents filed with the court. The mastermind had withdrawn tens of thousands of dollars from the American Credit Crunchers and Ebeeze bank accounts, the FTC alleges.
