I received a message on my home phone from John Hawkins at 213-992-0690. The call was listed as being from Los Angeles, CA on the caller id. The message was very difficult to understand because of the heavy foreign accent. He stated that I needed to call him right away to handle a matter and if I didn't then good luck to me. When I called him back John Hawkins was not available for some reason but I spoke with a Joseph Hernandez (again very heavy accent that was NOT Hispanic accent). He told me that I owed a payday loan with his company and when I said I didn't know that company he said they were the parent company and had hundreds of companies under them and that the loan was probably with one of them. He couldn't tell me the company name but told me that he was a paralegal and that I needed to handle this or I would be sued. He told me that I had received 16 emails and ignored them and that's why it had gotten to the point of me being sued. He finally convinced me that I needed to make arrangements. I was at work and nervous. He made a payment arrangement and then told me to write these words on a fax that I needed to send: "I authorize Joseph Hernandez to debit my account..." red flag immediately went up and I told him that he it should be a company withdrawing funds not a person. He got hostile with me and said forget it we'll just send the papers to the court. After several times asking, I was finally able to get him to give me a fax number. When I got home and checked my email again, there were no emails from this company or anyone saying I owed them. I googled the company name and found all these reports about the scam. Other than calling the BBB and contacting the credit bureaus I'm not sure what to do. This is scary. He had my family members' names as references and my home and work numbers. I don't know what other info he has on me. Please beware!
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