914-819-0445

He said his name was "Patrick Johnson", but his accent was distinctly East Indian. I hung up.

Got a call from this number as well. No message left.

Caller said I had downloaded some junk files and she was from the IT dept. to help me clean up my computer. I said you're joking aren't you and who is this. The line went dead.

This number keeps calling and never leaves a message.

The national pandemic of telephone terrorism perpetrated by desperate criminal collection agencies and scam artists of every despicable sort is because they are trying to terrorize people who are naive enough to answer and submit to unsolicited telephone calls or written "collection" letters that have no legitimate legal debt associated with them or any of the companies, universities, or whomever else they claim to represent. Because most "little guys" were bankrupted by the criminal Wall St / Congress / Big Oil / Big Bankers / Big Business / Military / Robber Barons, so the desperate collection agencies are attempting to collect unpaid debts from innocent people by terrorizing them into submission. News reports claim that some of these nefarious rogue calls are originating from overseas, where the caller claims to be a relative down on his or her luck who needs hundreds or thousands of dollars to get out of trouble, a policeman or government agent threatening their unwitting victims with lawsuits, fines, garnishments, seizures of property and imprisonment, and any other unconscionable tactic they can use to terrify and swindle the unwary out of their life savings.

Word of advice. NEVER answer any calls you don't recognize or are not expecting. Use selective call rejection service if available, or switch to an Internet-based telephone service which provides comprehensive call rejection options. If rogue calls become chronic, turn off all the ringers on all of your phones except one, and set its volume to the minimum setting. Digital hardware call blockers, the popular "DIGITONE Call Blocker 10" for example, could help or do harm depending on how high-tech and aggressive the rogue callers are against your phone number. The more technology you use against them, the more likely they will use technology more aggressively against you to the point where your phone could ring more frequently from rogue calls and in middle of the night hours. So staying lower-tech could actually help to keep your phone a bit more under their unrelenting predatory radar. If you don't answer the call and the caller is legitimate, they will usually leave a voicemail after the first or second try. Rogue callers almost never leave voicemail messages because that could be used as evidence against them if it came to a lawsuit, albeit spoofed calls are backed by governments and corporations, so there is nothing the little guy can do against such illegitimate activities but to block and ignore them. If you receive a rogue letter in the mail warning you of some "collection" action against you, if you don't actually owe it, reply with a short letter stating that you don't owe it. Or if you do owe all or part of it, reply with something like "You claim I owe you a debt. Under §809 FDCPA, I request validation of this debt."

Only give them your name as THEY have written it to you (e.g. “John Doe” not “Jonathon Q. Doe” or however you normally sign your own name), address, and the account number they report. But if you do not owe the debt (zombie debt, aged debt, mistaken or stolen identity, forgery, etc.) state that you have never done any business with them or with the (alleged) original creditor of any kind and you expect the collection agency to close the matter, stop harassing you and take any bad credit marks they've caused off of your credit rating, and furthermore, that any further contact from them must be in writing on their official business correspondence letterhead. Send your letter to them a.s.a.p., always within thirty days, first class certified mail return receipt requested. If they refuse it and you get the letter back unopened, leave it unopened and save it in your files as evidence against them should they pursue legal action against you. If they did receive it and continue to pursue action against you, let them. The judge will throw it out of court. If the rogue collection agency sells your account to another rogue collection agency just tell them the claim has been proven invalid and offer to send them a copy of your letter to the previous rogue collection agency.

Warn all your friends about this rash of desperate collection agency terrorism, and how to combat it. Knowledge is power. The more you learn how to combat rogue collection agencies, back-taxes scammers, phishing scammers, "faith and family" scammers, political action committees and other low-life flimflammers, the more you will learn how easy it is to do.

Above all, keep a record of everything, of every rogue call w/ caller ID information displayed including time and date of each call. Maintain a complete file on any snail-mailed intimidation from rogue collection agencies, including copies of all correspondences and postal receipts. Reporting rogue calls on sites like 800notes.com, whocallsme.com, phoneowner.info is a great idea too, because many people find these sites by googling for the rogue number(s) after receiving calls from them.

--

Start Here:
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs3-hrs2.htm
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=%C2%A7809+FDCPA
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=zombie-debt
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=slander-of-credit
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=limited ... llection-agency
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs27-debtcoll.htm
http://www.ehow.com/way_5849463_do-up-certified-dispute-letter.html
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Defeat-a-Collection-Agency
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/Battling-Consumer-Debt-Collectors-Part-2-I-Do-Not-Owe-This-Debt
http://www.hubpages.com/hub/Sample-letters-for-disputes-to-creditors--collectors-and-credit-bureaus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDCPA
http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/Disputing ... ute-letter.html
(most say the above sample letter is too long and should be much shorter)
http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/statue-limitations.html
http://www.spooftel.com/

Credit Report:
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

USPS:
https://www.usps.com/send/insurance-and-extra-services.htm

Other links:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/02/29 ... tors/index.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Defeat-a-Collection-Agency
http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/category/12/103/358/
http://clarkhoward.com/topics/drop_dead_letter.html
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Information for filing complaints against rogue telephone calls, telephone harassment, false "bill collector" harassment, etc., in the United States and Canada (pursue legal action only as a last resort):

UNITED STATES

US National Do Not Call Registry, file complaint: https://www.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx

Federal Trade Commission
http://www.ftc.gov 1-877-382-4357
File complaint online: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en
that is at www.ftc.gov

Federal Communications Commission
Telephone toll free:  1-888-225-5322
http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html
File complaint online: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumers.html
http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

FCC Abandoned Calls Complaint form:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/1088D-R.pdf
email:  fccinfo@fcc.gov

Better Business Bureau, Check out a Business, find owner, contact info; file a Complaint:
http://www.bbb.org/us/


INTERNET CRIME:
File report for Internet Crime at:
Internet Crime Complaint Centre
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx


CANADA

RCMP Phone busters
Telephone toll free: 1-888-495-8501
Mon-Fri 8:30-5:20 pm (Eastern Time)
E-mail: info@phonebusters.com
RCMP Website is at: http://www.phonebusters.com  
File complaint online:  https://www.recol.ca/intro.aspx?lang=en
(Register with a password and then can continually file complaints)

Canada National Do Not Call Registry:
Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
Telephone toll free to File A Complaint: 1-866-580-3625
(to withdraw a complaint is 877-249-2782)
CRTC online complaints form: https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/pfplin-fccoin-eng
that is at  www.crtc.gc.ca

Better Business Bureau, Check out a Business, find owner, contact info; file a Complaint:
http://www.bbb.org/canada/

This number keeps call everyday and sometimes more than once. I try retrieving the call but the message from my carrier is that the number is no longer in service. Are they trying to check to see if we are home or what?
I don't know anyone in Pelman NY! or anyone from there!

A guy with an East Indian accent called me and said he heard my computer had some problems with downloading things.  I told him my computer was fine.  He asked me to go over to my computer.  I asked him why I should go over to my computer.  He told me my computer has been downloading some malicious files.  I told him I didn't believe him, and if there's a problem send me a letter about it.  He hung up.  

This is a scam to get access to your computer..do NOT fall for it.  This guy w/a foreign accent said I had bad spyware files on my computer.  I told him I was tracing the call and calling the police because it's an illegal scam to hack my computer.  Nobody can see your computer or your files and if they did see spyware or virus files, they would NOT contact you this way anyhow.  You'd get a certified letter and/or email from your internet service provider if it really were that bad..and it usually isn't.  Never give out your info or do ANYTHING they tell you on the phone if it's not somebody you know.  Your provider of internet will send somebody over worst case scenario to help you (may be at a price) but don't do the phone scams!

Got the same type of call from this number. I told her I didn't have a computer and that she had the wrong number.

12-19-2013  Received multiple calls from #.  A  "Max" Claims he wants to to fix my computer which is sending error messages to MS. Told him I gad a MAC. He hung up. -Next time he called, I asked who he was and what company did he work for, and he hung up.

You would think they would not call the same # after being confronted.
I wonder if the real Vonage knows this is going on ?.
As I typed this I just got a second call from a different "accented" person saying he was with "Windows Care" from a blocked #. And MicroSoft computer updates were not going through and he was here to help me fix that.

Said his # was at 888-991-1910 and he was in Florida. When I asked if he had connections to New York people who just called me he Hung up. Maybe I will let them walk me though a fix so I can see what they are trying to delete/reset.
May be time to get State att. general involved.

I also got this same call just a few minutes ago.  I told them my IT guy was out and asked for a number to call back to take care of this.  He said no thanks and hung up.

Keep getting calls but they never leave a message.when I try to call back the number is not a valid number.

Received another call, this time I played along.
The foreign-male voice stated that he was Jake from Windows support.
Here is what they are requesting you to do...
1. Get in front of your computer.
2. Press Ctrl+{Windows Key}+R
3. In Run box, enter INF and click Enter.
This pulls up a C:\Windows\Inf and asked if I could identify any files in this directory (it is a Windows  directory).
I stated, "No"
Then they had me open my browser and enter: http://www.calderatech.com/ 
Jake stated that he would be connecting me to his senior technician, named Melvin.
Melvin confirmed with me that I had the website open and wanted to click on a big green button.
DO NOT CLICK ON THIS BUTTON-This green button is dangerous; as, it has an executable behind the link: #######calderatech.com/RemoteSupport/Caldera-Tech_Remote_Support.exe
This will install their application on your machine to allow them to take full control.

Confronted this Bozo.  He went silent, then hung up.


For more info on this scam, please copy and paste this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/avoid-phone-scams.aspx

Avoid tech support phone scams

Cybercriminals don't just send fraudulent email messages and set up fake websites. They might also call you on the telephone and claim to be from Microsoft. They might offer to help solve your computer problems or sell you a software license. Once they have access to your computer, they can do the following:

◾Trick you into installing malicious software that could capture sensitive data, such as online banking user names and passwords. They might also then charge you to remove this software.

◾Take control of your computer remotely and adjust settings to leave your computer vulnerable.

◾Request credit card information so they can bill you for phony services.

◾Direct you to fraudulent websites and ask you to enter credit card and other personal or financial information there.

Neither Microsoft nor our partners make unsolicited phone calls (also known as cold calls) to charge you for computer security or software fixes.
{read more after accessing the link above...}