You’d think a simple monetary award or a short stint in jail would be enough, but no, not for Redditor quitethunder – this guy took a simple, idiotic scam plot against him and turned it into a court case ending with him taking the woman’s house right from under her. Yep, he wound up taking her house as revenge and even…well, I’ll stop myself there.
We should let him explain the story for himself:
This story begins almost a year ago. I received a call from an unknown number on my cell phone. It was an automated message to call a 888 number in regards to serving me papers. I knew right away this may have been a collection agency. Googled the number and confirmed it.
Now I have to disclose I did have identity theft almost 20 years ago. To this day I occasionally get calls from collection agencies trying to collect on some debt from 20+ years ago that was cleared. Now most of the time when I get these calls, I ask for their address to send in a dispute letter including the accompanying data for proof that I had identity theft. Granted they should not be calling me, but they apologize and I don’t get another call. Plus they usually mail me back and said they closed the account.Well, I go to call this person and I got to say the call was interesting. This woman answered and I gave her my information. She started rattling off a debt that was back in 1995. I let her finish and I told her that I had no knowledge and there was identity theft. And as soon as I said that, she freaked out. She kept saying she knew the debt was mine and I’m going to pay. I kept telling her that I wanted to mail a letter. But she flat out refused. When I told her I knew my rights, she said that I had the right to pay the debt. She then said that she is going to put a lien on my “huge pretty house” (her words) and she was describing the house to the letter. She also said she is going to put a lien on my Lexus that she “sees” in the drive way. And she said that my gate in the front won’t stop the repossession. She then hung up.
Now I knew better. All she did was get my info from public records and then saw my house on Google Street View. My guess is that she tried to push this intimidation on other people that know better. So far it appeared to be a very disreputable company. I also had phone recordings when I called in. And they were legal as I asked her if phone calls can be recorded for quality control purposes. She said of course. And I said “thank you, I’ll take that as my consent”.I would of just let this go and just say this lady was crazy. But I kept getting the automated phone calls and I couldn’t block them as they were unknown. I Googled the company and I thought they were in Ohio. A couple of flags that led me to believe this was that the person who owned this company in Ohio was being indicted with charges whom was an attorney. I placed a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General. They couldn’t find any information on what I was submitting. They did call the phone number I gave them and the attorney general told me they would stop from calling me. But that is all the attorney general could do. I also complained to the Federal Consumer Finance Bureau whom is supposed to be looking into these issues. But they blew my off.
Well three months later, I called this number. I had an idea of maybe pressing buttons when I called in to see if I could get more information about the company through the IVR. Well that paid off. As soon as I pressed 0, I got a different company name. I Googled that company and got tons of complaints. This lead me to the company existing in NY. I complained to the attorney general of NY with all of my info.
I done quite a bit of research over the next couple of weeks and found out a whole bunch of information such as the owner . Found out that the address where the company no longer received mail was at the owner’s address, their Facebook account, etc.. I then got another one of those unknown phone calls. But this time, it’s a different company. I’m sure you get what I am getting at. The company just keeps changing the name, but the parent company still calls. I finally had enough of this.
I get a private investigator involved and they were quite satisfied with all the information I got so far. So I let him do his business. Well he calls me back saying that this company isn’t even registered and it’s ran by this one lady. I find out the rude lady whom I am talking to is the supposed owner, but not running a legitimate business. I got a process server to file a claim in NY. Granted I think I could have done it where I was at. But I was heading up to that area in NY anyway as I had some family reasonably close. Problem was she was not able to be served. The house which she owned, she was not able to be served at. Either she was not there or was staying somewhere else. Well my private investigator started sending out friend requests to her and the people in her friends lists. Well her friends and then she accepted the facebook request. My private investigator found out that she cheated on her boyfriend about a month ago since she posted that crap. The private investigator gave me an idea of trying to reach her boyfriend and if he can lead us to serve her, I will give him $500. Well we did that and sure enough we were finally able to serve this lady at her parents house about 20 miles from where she was at.
I fly up to NY and since it’s small claims it’s just me and this lady. For some reason her mother is there too, but she is not representing. I give the judge all of my info I had over the months and how she broke the law. She broke debt collection laws and threats over the phone. After the judge heard all the trouble I had with these calls and how she hid her identity purposely, the judge gave me the maximum amount of $3000. In NY, small towns and villages are limited to $3000. After the case, I heard her mother loudly whispering (but I heard it,) “You better hope he doesn’t take your house” “Your great grand-father built this with his own bare hands”
I was thinking. “Hmmm, it would be sweet revenge if I could actually put a lien on the house” Well lo and behold, I found out the house had a second mortgage attached to it. With the property value of the house and if it sold, I wouldn’t end up getting the lien money since the secondary mortgage was almost as much as the house.
I was then contemplating how I was going to get the money from this lady. My private investigator calls me five months later and said her house is going into foreclosure. I get a proxy to bid for me. But as in most foreclosure actions, the bank buys it back as an REO. I decided to send in a low ball offer to buy the house a couple of months later. The bank accepted my offer. My guess is that it’s a small town and trying to get the right market was an issue.
You may be wondering why I even bought this house? Well here’s why. This bitch threatened to put a lien on my house with no merit. Well guess what, I fucking took her house! It was completely worth it. It didn’t cost me too much and I had the money. The house is actually in decent shape, just a little small. Plus it will be a nice summer home when I go to visit my relatives. Oh and I decided to rub in salt to the wound. I sent a letter to her parent’s address letting them know I took the house. I told them that if her daughter wouldn’t be in the business of scamming people, they may not have lost the house. I also go to find out that the Attorney General of NY is now investigating this lady. I hope they throw the book at her! Not going to mention the collection agency, but if you stopped getting phone calls from them, you’re welcome!
[Via Reddit]