Complaint Review: Georgia Check Recovery - Jersey Georgia

This was in regard to a check written to Dairy Queen in Dublin Texas, during 2007 calendar year. Here is how it all went down.

My wife and I had supper at dairy queen on a Wednesday after church. The total cost of the meal was 12.87, for which I presented a check for payment. I heard nothing about the check, until recently, some 2 years after it happened. I received a letter from Georgia Check Recovery, threatening civil and criminal penalties, in addition to demanding 87$ to cover a check that was only $13.00.

The letter said "this is your 3rd notice". Problem with that is, that if the check had actually bounced, I would have been notified from my bank within a few days, not years. The second problem with this is I had just received student aid refunds from college, and had 1500$ in the bank, plus 500$ in OD protection.

Contrary to all these facts, I called them, and spoke to Ms Reagan. She said that I had to pay  87.00$ by friday October 16, 2009 in order to avoid the check going to legal. Further, she explained that having an outstanding check on a closed account was "deposit account fraud", and is a felony in Texas. She also told me the check number, the amount, and who it was written to. Even with the red flags in my head, I agreed to pay the debt, but demanded it wait until friday to be processed. They agreed. I did not have the money in the bank at that point, and I wanted to do research on them.

I immediately got on the internet, and googled "georgia check recovery", and what I found was not really surprising. Of all the reasearch I did, 18/20 people said that they had received letters in the same format demanding varying amounts of money. The other 2 were phone calls from GCR. All 20 people documented they had spoken with Ms Reagan, or only 1 other person. In every instance, they made demands for money, threats to arrest and inprison, and had all of the individuals personal information. 2 of the 20 people actually commented that they knew they had a bad check, but the notification was not 2 years after the fact, and they had been notified from their bank.  In GCR's favor, they are registered and accredited with the BBB, and have a C+ rating.

Just to make sure my research was not flawed, I called the Dairy Queen where the alledged event took place, and asked to speak with the store manager. She referred me to the district manager, who returned my call yesterday(saturday October 17 2009), and said "I do not do business of ANY kind with Georgia Check Recovery, Ive never HEARD of them, thus it is a SCAM". I have this on my house phone voicemail, if there are any questions. He further said that he checked his records, and he does not have record of a bad check from me. The 1 check I wrote cleared.

With the information I had obtained up to Friday, I did not deposit funds, and thus the transaction was declined. I had given them a debit card number, NOT my checking account number. This was to ensure if they were a scam, they wouldnt get any money until I was sure it was legit.

When the transaction declined, GCR called. My wife answered the phone. My wife identified herself as my sister, knowing that is illegal to share financial information with a 3rd party. Sure enough, we hooked them. GCR said "well he agreed to pay off a bad check with a credit card, and the transaction declined". They shared in depth financial information, exposed that I alledgedly had a bad debt to a 3rd party.

In addition, Federal law requires that when they speak to a debtor they give a disclaimer,"this is an attempt to collect a debt, any information obtained will be used for that purpose". They failed to do this, every time I called them, and they called me. In total, I had 5 communications with them.

Take this information as a warning:Georgia Check Recovery, is nothing more than some twisted dude's conceptual idea of how to get rich quick. DO NOT pay them.

Hope this helps someone.