Asset Recovery Associates [ARA]
Reviews and Complaints

Asked this people several contact me by mail only and the calls keep coming. Also they will not identify themselves. Last call was from Joseph Brazzi.

ARA just called me and was very vague about why they were calling and transferred me from "Michael Williams" to "Ms Bloomberg" where she began to tell me my social security number in full, birth date and that I'm over 65 and asked if I still worked and told me I owe 24, 000 on a credit card with a 5000 dollar limit. As I listened she proceeded to tell me she will accept 22, 000 because she would hate to have to report me to the credit bureau today and hurt my 900 credit score and bring it down to a 700. She even gave me the credit card number. She said they are bringing a lawsuit to get their money. She wouldn't let me speak or ask many questions. She kept saying excuse me. Finally I just said thanks for telling me all my dead mothers information I am 40 yrs old and have no idea why my number was associated to my mothers name and info or where they get all this information from. She never even let me know her social even when she was my beneficiary on my life insurance. I'm pretty sure she'd be pissed if she spent 40 years making sure I never learned it and then these fools who specifically said this isn't a scam cuz we know all your info, gave it to me over the phone. She said [censored] your moms not dead and that she knew I was my mom and I said do I sound sixty 67 and she said oh whatever and hung up on me.

I received a call on my cell on 3/27/19 from Tammy at 888-686-9475 asking for my husband. I told her he was not available, but I was his wife, how could I help her. She said unless I could verify the last 4 digits of his social, she could not talk to me. So I told her fine, then dont call me again. She stopped me and told me to hold on she would get a supervisor to see if he could over ride that. Ron Rogers came on the line and told me he could tell me what it was about. It was about a Bank of America Master Card from 2006 and that he had a Federal Affidavit that we must pay or the debt would be attached to our mortgage. He said the balance was $28, 263.64 but they were willing to settle for $4800. I informed him that we never had a Master Card. He said "Yes you did because payments were being made on it from 2001 - 2006." He then told me notices had been mailed to an address we lived in 20 years ago (but not during that time line) and that the references on the account were me, my husbands mother, and his first wife (both of whom are now deceased! And Seriously - who would use their ex wife as a credit reference!) I laughed at him and told him he must not have paid for the entire report on my husband from wherever he got that info because it was ridiculous. I told him if this is for real, send me something in writing. (still not giving him our current address) He got very belligerent and told me we would be sorry if we did not pay this debt that we owe because it will be attached to our mortgage (even though he did not have our current address), our bank account could be frozen, and we may even face criminal charges. I "politely" told him he was crazy as a loon and Good Try, but he wasn't getting my money. I am smart enough to know those things will not happen. This company is really good at scaring people - Yall dont fall for it!

They called several family members. Told them they were going to contact my HR department of my current job. The girl was absolutely rude and poked fun at the fact that I'm a disabled veteran and fell on hard times. I'm now stressed out and severely anxious at work. I'd like to see them in court after coming after a loan that's past it's statue of limitations.

August 1, 2017 A.R.A. called me about a credit card debt from 1998.
They said if I paid part today and paid the balance by August 14, 2017, they could cut the total owed in half. I was confused as 1998 was a long time ago! But my Ex Husband had financial issues, so it could have been his debt. I gave them my credit card number for the amount they wanted that day. (That charge is now being disputed.) When I received the Fed Ex packet the debt was not to MBNA = Bank of American, but Mbna America America Bank.
When I googled A.R.A. I found letter after letter saying A.R.A. is a scam!
I had already figured that out because I did not work in 1998, I did not have a credit card in my name in 1998.
Desired resolution? Put these people out of business!

I was contacted by a company who described themselves as ara. When I asked what that stood for they didn't answer. I was transferred to someone named kimberly wallace. I didn't get an answer after being on hold for a while so I hung up. About 30 minutes later I was contacted by kimberly wallace. She said she wanted to talk to me about a visa account. I asked her when was this account opened and she told me that it was opened about 40 years ago. I knew that was wrong. So I asked for a date and finally she told me that it was in 1991. I told her I did not know what she was talking about. She then asked me if I got a divorce around that time and I told her I did in 1992. She said it could have been from my ex wife. I told her I did not know but that I didn't know anything about it. She went on to tell me that a bank had gone to court and had obtained a judgement against me. I told her I never saw any correspondence from this bank and that I have never been subpoenaed to court so how did they get a judgement for a debt I don't know about that is at least 25 years old. She just told me that they did and that they would put a lien on my house and ruin my credit unless I didn't settle with them. I asked them how much they wanted and they told me the debt was about 2000 in principal and 4000 in interest. But that they would offer me a settlement of about 1500.00. I told her I don't have 1500 dollars and my only income is social security. She started telling me about the credit cards I now have and that I could use them to pay the settlement offer. I was really suspicious of this company not offering to provide any documentation or proof of their claim. So I told her to call me in an hour so that I could think about the situation. When she hung up I got on the web and looked up ara and found out all this information about them and none of it was good. I set my phone to block their number. I also found out through calling them back that ara stood for asset recovery associates. I am glad I had the sense to check the internet and call my cousin who is an attorney or these people might have scammed me.

Got a letter and a call from asset recovery associates on [protected], client number 3149046, amy lewis [protected] ext 3076. She said they were going to put me in federal collections, garnish wages and such if I didn't pay them over $10, 000. They had a settlement amount of 2956.38. I could pay some today and then pay the rest tomorrow. This is for a credit card my wife had during our divorce 20 years ago. I paid them $100 over the phone. I have no record of this on my credit score. Having read what I about this company and the limitations on credit cards I have decided not to pay anything else.

A ms. Calmer called my home today about an old credit card debt (From 2000), and she stated that a civil suit was just awarded against me on dec 19, 2016. They had my chase credit card info, home loan info and even mentioned a jc penney card and the asset collection team would work to recover the old debt. I let her know that as I have told the numerous collection agencies that the specific credit card she is calling about was one that my oldest brother opened up back when I was in college without my knowledge or consent. I found out about it when I was trying to buy my first house. I tried to get him to close the account and get his own, but he said if I could pay off his $6k in charges, then he would close it. I told him that I wasn't going to pay for his stuff, but I didn't know what else to do. Anyway, ms. Calmer gave me a case number 2977341 and said it would also be filed in my county, and that because of this judgement, I would see my credit score and interest rates be negatively impacted. She stated the full amount was $25, 690.88, but if I paid the base fee of $11, 308.15 they could prevent this from going on my credit report... Like I have that kind of money just sitting around. I told her she needed to call my brother, but she refused to take any information. I called my brother and he said the that debt had fallen outside of the statute of limitations and the debt was noncollectable. He said that they were using scare tactics to get me to pay. My blood pressure is still up from all this, and my wife is upset at me for not having somehow forced my brother way back when to take care of his debt.

Today I received a call from joseph brazzi. He said he was with ara-asset recovery associates, 1919 s. Highland #225a, lombard il 60148. He was giving me notice that my husband's visa credit card ending in 5940 was about to go to court on default. He stated that the card provided by providian visa was in default to the tune of $5994.48. He had all kinds of information on me: my physical address, my mailing address, my social security number!, the fact that my husband passed away in march 2016. Now I was liable for the amount and he wanted to resolve it in my best interests. He passed me on to denise stone in the legal department. She would help me resolve the issue before it would go to court. Denise said that they had sent me numerous mailings to resolve the issue. I tried to explain that when we did have the credit card over 20 years ago we quickly paid it off because of its high interest rate. She claimed there was activity on it up to march 2015 and that the balance had to be paid off. I was now liable since gary had passed. I asked her to mail me the papers to show what all of this was about, but she kept calling me "difficult" and that she was only trying to help me out of a difficult situation. She was willing to set up a payment schedule. I continued to ask for the paperwork until I realized the conversation was going nowhere. I told her that I was going to call the attorney general and I hung up on her. I called ag immediately.

This company purchases very old debt way after the statute of limitations has long past. They use fear and misrepresentation to scare people into paying a debt that no longer is legally required to be paid. They also claim when they call that they are calling on behalf of your local county court to make it seem like like a legal matter.

I was called on my cell phone by tim johnson about a debt from when I was in college back in 1993. I was told that it was about to go to court and that my wages were going to be garnished. Also very early in the call they ask for your email address which is very weird. He told me that the total was over $7k. Then he put me on the phone with stephanie yates who was "his boss". She told me I could settle for $3k. I said I would have to think about it and call later.

2 days later, I received a call from my place of employment while I was travelling for work, telling me that a timothy johnson called, saying he was an attorney and that my wages were going to be garnished! This would never ever happen. You cannot say that to someone other than the actual person. They also use the tactic of mentioning the name of the person in charge of wage garnishing at your company (Which is easy to find out) to make it sound like it's really going to happen. Only a court order/judgement can cause this.

I then called back, beside myself and spoke to stephanie again who now lowered the settlement to $1400. Another indicator that they just want anything they can get because that's what bottom feeders do - they take anything that they can get.

They are not lawyers. They are miserable, undereducated, unprofessional examples of human garbage who can't make money any other way than to lie to people to collect debts that are no longer vaild.

I never post complaints about anyone but this experience pushed me over the top and I can only hope it is read by people who I can spare this embarrassment and grief. They call from [protected]. They are located in villa park, il. After doing my research, not only did I find out there are several complaints on this site about them, but I have contacted an attorney who informed me that they have been sued over 19 times for abusing consumers in this way. I was intimidated and lied to and misled into paying them $1400 and I am beyond disgusted but taking the step of calling my place of employment and saying these things to people I work with is a major issue for me.

Here are their numbers:

Your caller id will show [protected].

Their "contracts" say [protected] - fax [protected]

Ara

Asset recovery associates

P. O. Box 5002

Villa park, il 60181

My advice: before calling anyone back about any "financial matter", look them up online first to know who you are dealing with. I was travelling for work and thus was caught off guard. Do not make the mistake I made.

Best of luck.

Anyone out there.. Don't be fooled like I was. I don't know what to do, but I suspect these people have raked in thousands of dollars. I hope I can find some way to get them put in jail, and stop ripping people off.

Everyone and anyone reading this, if you receive an envelope with a return address of ara, it's fake. They even have a bogus website. All the pictures look like stock photos that anyone can use.

Not only from ara any fraud company be careful and escalate with bbb, ftc along with police and ag office complaint.

On 9/30/08, a message was left on my voicemail at work at 6:31pm from a michael kennedy from ara associates. He said that his number is [protected], ext. 3076 and added, 'when you call, please refer to case #334089. This requires your attention immediately.'

Because he left such scant information, I ignored the call.

On 10/24/08, this michael kennedy left another message on my work voicemail at 11:02am. This time, he identified himself as being from asset recovery associates. He gave me the same case number and phone number to call. He stated that there was 'going to be a decision soon that could have a very negative impact' on me. He added that he knew I was a working lady so he would be there from 8am until 12 noon on saturday.

All of this sounded familiar to me because on august 21, 2006, I received a letter from financial credit services with the same sort of message and instructions to call. I called, spoke to a stacy king, and was told that they were trying to collect on a very old debt (I can't remember how old, but it was something like 18 or 20 years) owed by my ex-husband from whom i've been divorced for 23 years.

I was incredulous and said that I couldn't possibly be held liable for this and offered to give her my ex-husband's address and phone number. She insisted that since we were married when the debt was incurred, I was responsible and failure to pay would result in a report to the credit bureau and hurt my credit rating. She offered to let me settle the debt for a reduced sum ($165.00) and stated that if I did not do so on that day, I would have to pay the full judgment and my credit rating would be impacted.

Idiot that I was, I actually gave her my checking account information and agreed she could withdraw the funds electronically. Afterwards, I spoke to a friend about this and they told me I had been scammed. They had just heard about this scam from clark howard and told me that there was a statute of limitations on debt collection and what they were doing is illegal. I checked this out on clark howard's website and realized I had indeed been scammed.

I called stacy king back, told her what I had discovered, said that I was stopping payment and would be reporting them to the fcc and bbb, threats I unfortunately never followed through on. On the next business day, I contacted my credit union to see if the funds had been withdrawn. They had not and I instructed them not to release the funds and to notify me if anyone tried to access them.

Because of that experience, I googled asset recovery associates and found that - surprise! - they are also known as financial credit services. I looked up the case number they gave me in 2006 and sure enough, #334089, the very same as given to me by michael kennedy on 9/30/08 and 10/24/08!

This time, I intend to make good on my threats of 2006 and then some!