Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia

That sounds very suspicious. In order for the State to take out a warrant against you for bad checks, the creditor has to send you a very specific letter within a certain period of time. If you never got such a letter, and are only receiving phone calls, look up the law firm to see if anyone else has been scammed in this method, and do not pay anything. If they call again, tell them to send you something in writing to that you can take it to a lawyer to look it over. On the other hand, if this deals with checks written very recently, go and see a lawyer and give them the details to find out whether there are any steps you need to take to get rid of it.

This could be a scam. It probably is. A 2004 bad check cannot likely be prosecuted in 2013. See a local lawyer to be safe.

Law firms do not contact you to tell you that bad check charges will be filed. That is not how the criminal system works. Instead, the police just show up and take you into custody. But for bad check charges to be filed, the person who received the bad check (usually a merchant) must write to you. If you do not pay then the district attorney will write you a letter if there is a worthless check program in the county. Neither of these scenarios involve a lawyer calling.

That is because real lawyers seldom call debtors unless they have a debt collection wing staffed by non-attorney debt collectors. The debt collection lawyers I know send a letter and if the debtor does not pay then they sue civilly. So I doubt very much that it is a real lawyer calling. It is a payday lender or debt collector impersonating a lawyer or its a scam.

Next time they call, write down the number and ask them if they are an attorney for their bar number and state of admission. If they give it to you, all states have bar associations and you can look up the lawyer. My guess is that if they are a real law firm or lawyer they will give you the information but they will probably hang up.

This might be a scam but more probably it is an overseas payday lender trying to scare you. First, payday loans are virtually illegal in GA and if the payday lender tried to press charges against you they might end up being the ones prosecuted.

I wrote a brief article on payday loans generally and specifically on GA law: http://www.rachelhunterlaw.com/articles/article_9_Pay_DAY_Lending.html

Read it; it should answer your questions.

I am not licensed in NY but I am willing to bet that (a) the statute of limitations has expired; and (b) that NY has a similar law regarding payday loans in that they are either totally illegal or else they come with stringent requirements; if the requirements are not met or the loans are illegal, the most you would have to pay back is the principal borrowed and maybe the statutory rate of interest. Further, you cannot be prosecuted in GA for a NY loan. If a crime was committed, it would have been committed in NY.