On November 6, 2023 Carissa Brown, 35, was sentenced to 54 months in prison for orchestrating a $1.9 million debt collection scheme in Charlotte, NC. Follow Charlotte Alerts on Instagram here.
From 2015 to July 2020, Carissa executed a fraudulent debt collection scheme that defrauded hundreds of victims located in North Carolina and elsewhere in the United States.
Court records show that, during the relevant time period, Carissa had registered three companies in North Carolina, which she used in furtherance of the scheme: Accredited Recovery Solutions, LLC (Accredited Recovery Network); Elite Credit Adjusters, LLC (Elite Credit Network); and Martin Recovery Group, LLC (Martin Recovery, P.C. and the Law Office of Martin and Associates).
According to court records, Carissa operated her fraudulent debt collection scheme by contacting individuals who had been sued by various creditors for their outstanding debt and falsely represented that she was authorized to collect the debt on behalf of those creditors.
Carissa generally offered victims to settle the outstanding debt for a reduced amount, but only if the victims accepted the offer and paid the reduced amount in full, or began to make payments immediately to one of Carissa’s companies.
Carissa often mailed victims official looking documents, including a purported settlement agreement.
Victims then made a lump sum payment or several payments to Carissa and her companies, believing that doing so would resolve their debt and outstanding court case, only to later learn that Carissa was not authorized to collect the debt and the victims still owed the full debt to the real creditor.
To further induce victims to comply with the debt repayment demands, Carissa sent correspondence to victims on letterhead that implied the communication was coming from a law firm, and left voicemails for victims falsely representing that she was calling from a law firm.
In addition, Carissa also employed threatening and harassing pressure tactics to fraudulently induce victims to pay her, including threatening to garnish victims’ wages, to seize victims’ bank accounts, or to file judgments in court if payment on the debt was not received.
As a result of the false and fraudulent representations and threatening and harassing tactics used by Carissa, court documents show that hundreds of individuals throughout the United States were fraudulently induced to pay Carissa and her companies more than $1.9 million.
This resulted in victims being placed in the untenable position of either having to pay their debts twice, or face the financial consequences for failing to pay the true creditor.
Carissa previously pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. She is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
