Four real federal court cases — not hypotheticals — show exactly how phantom-debt and fake-collector schemes work, what the FTC caught them doing, and how each operator ended up permanently banned. Every claim in this course is sourced to the actual FTC case page or court order, linked inline. By the end, you'll know your FDCPA rights, why you should never pay before you get proof, and exactly how to report a suspected scheme.
The Federal Trade Commission maintains a public list of every individual and company a federal court has permanently banned from the debt collection industry. As of this writing, that list covers roughly 235 named defendants across 37 separate enforcement cases — real people and real companies, barred by real federal judges, for real violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the FTC Act.
Two terms come up constantly in these cases:
The cases in this course are not edge cases. They span a decade (2014-2024), dozens of shell companies, and tens of millions of dollars taken from consumers who, in many instances, did not owe the debt at all.
The FTC doesn't ban companies lightly. It has to sue in federal court, prove violations of the FDCPA and/or Section 5 of the FTC Act (deceptive or unfair practices), and win a permanent injunction — the industry-ban order. That is a much higher bar than a complaint or a bad review, which is exactly why every name on this list represents a federal court's finding, not an allegation.
In June 2018, the FTC and the New York Attorney General jointly sued Hylan Asset Management, LLC and a network of related entities named on the FTC's permanently-banned list — Bobalew, LLC; Bobalew Management Corporation; 6P, LLC; and 6P Management Corporation — along with individuals Andrew Shaevel and Jon E. Purizhansky, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.
What happened: The defendants brokered and collected on phantom debts — debts consumers did not actually owe — defrauding consumers out of millions of dollars.
Outcome: A July 2019 settlement permanently banned every defendant from the debt collection industry. In October 2021, the FTC distributed $772,512 in refunds to the consumers who had been harmed.
Notice the structure: a network of similarly-named LLCs, not one company. That pattern — several thinly-capitalized shell entities feeding payments up to the same small group of people — shows up across almost every case in this course, and it's a big part of why these schemes can keep operating even after one entity gets shut down or sued individually.
Stark Law, LLC (doing business as Stark Recovery) and a cluster of related companies — Stark Legal, LLC; Ashton Asset Management, Inc.; CHM Capital Group, LLC (also d/b/a Capital Harris Miller & Associates); HKM Funding, Ltd. (manager of CHM Capital Group); and Pacific Capital Holdings (formerly Charles Hunter Miller & Associates) — along with individuals Hirsh Mohindra, Gaurav Mohindra, and Preetesh Patel, were the subject of an FTC stipulated order resolving claims of deceptive debt collection practices.
What happened: According to the stipulated order, the respondents made false statements to consumers about debts and collection actions, threatened legal consequences they had no actual intention of pursuing, and misrepresented the nature and amount of the alleged obligations.
Outcome: A November 2017 settlement permanently banned Stark Law, LLC, Ashton Asset Management, CHM Capital Group, Pacific Capital Holdings, and the individual defendants from the debt collection industry and from buying or selling debt portfolios. The FTC and the Illinois Attorney General distributed more than $4 million to over 10,000 affected consumers (as of April 2021).
The core lesson from this case: a threat is not proof. "We're filing suit this week" or "this will go on your credit report tomorrow" means nothing if the collector can't produce the paperwork — the original creditor's name, the account history, and the amount — backing it up. Real collection actions take weeks to file and require formal documentation a court will actually accept.
In March 2014, the FTC sued Federal Check Processing, Inc., individuals Mark Briandi and William Moses, and a long list of related entities in the Western District of New York (Case No. 1:14-cv-00122-WMS). What makes this case worth studying isn't just the outcome — it's the sheer number of nearly-identical shell company names the operation used: Check Processing, Inc.; Central Check Processing, Inc.; Central Processing Services, Inc.; Flowing Streams, F.S., Inc.; Nationwide Check Processing, Inc. (also a/k/a National Processing Services); State Check Processing, Inc.; US Check Processing, Inc.; United Check Processing, Inc.; Federal Processing, Inc.; Federal Processing Services, Inc.; and Federal Recoveries, LLC.
Timeline: The FTC obtained a temporary restraining order and asset freeze in March 2014, won summary judgment in April 2016, and secured a final judgment and permanent injunction in October 2016.
Why the shell network matters: Names built around generic, official-sounding words — "Federal," "National," "Check Processing," "Recoveries" — are specifically designed to sound like a government office or a bank's back-office department, not a debt collector. The same handful of people apparently stood behind most or all of these entities.
If a caller's company name sounds like it was engineered to sound official rather than to be memorable or brandable — "Federal," "National," "U.S.," "Processing," "Recovery," "Bureau" stacked together — that alone isn't proof of fraud, but it's exactly the naming pattern this enforcement case was built around. Verify the name independently before you engage.
The most recent entry on the FTC's banned-collectors list, as of this writing, is National Landmark Logistics, LLC and its related entities — National Landmark Service of United Recovery, LLC; Liberty Solutions & Associates, LLC; LSA Processing Systems, LLC; Silver Lake Landmark Recovery Group, LLC — along with individuals Eric Dennison, James Dennison, and Jean Cellent.
What happened: The FTC alleged the defendants collected more than $12 million through illegal tactics: deceptive robocalls that falsely claimed consumers faced imminent legal action, impersonating a "mediation" or law firm when consumers called back, and using intimidation and consumers' own personal information to make the threats feel credible. In many cases, consumers either didn't owe the debt at all or the defendants had no legal authority to collect it — textbook phantom debt.
Outcome: The final order permanently bans the defendants from any debt collection activity, from buying or selling debt, and from misrepresenting goods, services, or legal representation — plus forfeiture of bank and investment account contents, Philadelphia-area property, and a vehicle. In December 2024, the FTC distributed more than $540,000 in refunds to affected consumers.
These four cases span a decade and they all share the same playbook: a network of similarly-named shell companies, threats designed to feel urgent and credible, impersonation of someone with legal authority, and — in every single case — consumers who either didn't owe the money or had no way to verify that they did before paying. The FTC's list keeps growing. This is not a historical problem; National Landmark Logistics was banned in December 2024.
Every case above could have been stopped earlier, for the specific consumer on the phone, by the same handful of moves. These apply whether or not the collector turns out to be on the FTC's banned list.
Type the name of whoever contacted you about a debt. We check it against the full court-ordered banned-collector list — plus the red flags to watch for and what to do next either way. Nothing you type leaves your browser.