Description

My family and myself were all contacted by this individual, Robert Davenport of PRZ Mediation who was looking for me and trying to collect money for a debt that he said, “landed on his desk” at his mediation agency he claimed he was the senior partner. I was then intimidated, lied to about being criminally charged for an outstanding debt and an issue of what he said was check fraud because when the original business was trying to collect payment, there was no funds so obviously the payment didn’t go through. He said all the right things and made me believe I was in real trouble if I didn’t get this taken care of, he said if we could get this amount set I wouldn’t have to pay any fees and couldn’t be charged. He also sent me state codes about fraud and it just seems like it was real at the time. I was scared and really believed the things he was saying. Obviously, this freaked me out, and I did unfortunately give him a debit card number, but I wasn’t quite suspicious yet because he already had all of my information, and in my experience, scammers normally ask you for sensitive information and don’t already have it it, so it wasn’t until I called back a couple days later to follow up on what he called a restitution letter (that was supposed to be sent when the first phone call happened) that way I could have some kind of paper trail about where this money was going to go. I was a tiny bit suspicious beforehand but I was naive enough to wait a few days before I called back to ask about the email that I never got. When I called back, the same guy (Robert Davenport) answered and eventually he did send it to me, but what was alarming was that the email address that the form came from was a regular Gmail account, not a business account and all of my personal information that I NEVER gave him was all on this form. Also, when I called the second time to ask about the email that I never got, he had to do some stalling as to why I didn’t get it and came up with an answer which was that they mistyped my email, but instead of just resending it, he said “ I still have the template so let me go ahead and make a new one to send you” well.. if you already sent it and had it generated, why wouldn’t you just send that same document to the correct email? I didn’t receive this form until about 30 minutes after the phone call ended and he did call me again to tell me that I should’ve received it (and this time I did) but again, it was strange that it wasn’t a business email, that he had to remake this and what I received does not look legit at all. Because I was even more worried at this point, I started to look up the address to see if the business was real because I only had a phone number and a name before this second interaction, and I found that this business does not exist at the address on the letterhead. I went ahead and called the leasing office who owns or runs that plaza and they have never heard of PRZ Mediation or a Robert Davenport. I even went ahead and contacted a few legit mediation groups in Austin (by the way, I don’t even live in Texas at this point in time) just to see from word-of-mouth if they had ever heard of this group and nobody has. I’ve gone ahead and done what I needed to do to protect my self further like freezing credit reports and canceling cards but it’s very alarming to know that this person already had my information before he called. I just want other people to not make the same mistake I did and get this information out there again. One more time, the name of the agency is supposed to be PRZ Mediation or Peterson Rothbachen Zahn Mediation with a senior partner named Robert Davenport. I’m also going to attach the top portion of the letterhead that was sent to me, which by the way looks like it came from Google Docs. All in all, I thought it was legit because of them already having my information, and the way the conversation flowed he seemed genuine and like he was really trying to help me by waving lawyer fees and working with me on a hardship waiver it really felt like service I would be getting from a legit company. The guy’s voice just seemed like a legit professional person but looking back on it now it could possibly be an AI generated voice. Everything they said sounded real, but it wasn’t until I had more information about who they were supposed to be that I realized that it was a scam. No money was taken yet because when he called I told him I didn’t have the money then and we’d have to set up a payment plan that would collect the first payment at a later date so while things still aren’t right, I haven’t lost anything just yet besides my privacy. At the time, it really did feel like he was trying to help me by finding flexibility that worked for me and saying he was gonna stop the background check so I’d be able to find a job in the future. It didn’t feel like somebody with ill intentions but clearly the scam game is evolving every day. Everyone please stay safe out there and beware of awful people out there who scam!