After having read several reports on this "company, " I felt it was important to corroborate what others have said.
I received a call from a man claiming he was from this Check Processing Bureau, Enforcement Division, about two months ago. He went on and on about how I owed money for a bad check I purportedly wrote 7 years ago that came back unpaid. Skeptical, I asked him for pertinent details, i.E., check number, bank, amount, etc. He gave me the check number, but couldn't give me the name of the bank it was supposedly drawn on, yet demanded I pay them the $200 I supposedly owed. I told him absolutely not, I thought he was trying to hustle me, and I was going to bring his company to the attention of the Attorney General. I then hung up.
About ten days letter, I received the threatening form letter that others have mentioned, telling me about how check fraud is a crime in NY and I could be exposed to civil and criminal action, and the only way I could avoid this was to pay up. Magically, I now owed $333. Luckily, I happen to be a criminal defense attorney, so I'm familiar with the Penal Law in NY. Passing a bad check is a class B misdemeanor around here, though I suppose one could also be charged with some form of larceny, be it grand or petit, depending upon the amount allegedly owed. SOL on this type of case as a felony in NY would be 5 years, and as a misdmeanor, two. That, however, would be assuming one actually passed a bad check.in my case (and I'm guessing in the case of many others), though, no bad check was passed; the check number and company cited by these people was bogus.
I filed a complaint with NY's BBB, and that was useless; I received a "Dear consumer, we don't deal with this sort of thing" letter. My next step will be to make good on my assertion that I would be contacting the Office of the Atty. General.
I have a feeling that in the end, the folks who are actually open to civil and criminal exposure will be those from this make-believe company.
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