Our store began receiving calls from some middle eastern sounding man speaking relatively poor English on Monday asking for Staci?. We have a cashier named Staci and they asked us to relay a message to her that the "legal dept" was calling for her and would call back/. They would not leave a number;. They called back 4 more times in a row/.

On Tuesday it started happening again and I finally got involved when my assistant manager notified me about the calls and asked me to get them to stop calling'. I answered the phone". There was a lot of noise in the background including a busy signal and I could hear other people talking and could hear my own voice being re-broad-casted in the "room" they were in;. I asked who I was speaking with and was told the "legal dept" so I said "the legal dept from where?" and he said something in his gibberish and I said I needed a call back number (that is a law that they give it) so I could give the message to Staci'. He refused and kept saying that she took out a payday loan and if I didn't cooperate they would "come after me".... Right!. So he hung up then called right back and started all over again, I got him to tell me it was "US Cash Advance". This happened about 20 times in the next 5 minutes with it finally culminating with him using the F word on me to which I told him he had no idea how way out of his league he was. I finally got a coaches whistle out and blew his brains out and he stopped calling. The touch tone #1 also works very effectively if held for about 10 seconds.

I googled US CASH ADVANCE and found many complaints and articles about this situation. I then proceeded to call the FCC and finally was directed to the FTC (1-877-382-4357) and filed a complaint. The young lady I spoke with informed me that they knew about this and that "everybody is looking for them". I told her about the harassing calls, how they were preventing us from conducting business and about his use of the F word on the phone (that adds to the charges) and told her if/when they ever caught them would she please let me know. They think they are using prepaid cell phones ( I disagree, it had to be a land line because they were hitting the redial button and literally were ringing the phone the same few seconds they hung up, you can't do that on a cell phone.) She stated that they have been very successful at getting "little old ladies who don't even know what a payday loan is" to pay them money. They call them and tell them that one of their kids is in big trouble and they need to pay this bill or else they are going to come and take away the house of the little old lady and they actually do it - they actually wire these bottom feeders money without even checking it out. Their drug of choice is wire transfer. These may be terrorist based in some way and then are using the money they steal to finance their operations.

The best advice from the FTC - "ignore it and it will go away" DON'T ENGAGE THEM. Just hang up. (or blow a coaches whistle into the receiver with all your might"

Anyone who gets contacted by this or anything similar please contact the FTC at 1-877-382-4357.

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