Portfolio Recovery Associates calls me at least once a day, most often from different phone numbers. I have no debt that is current, so I know they have no legal basis to call me. The calls come from 7 a.m. until after 9 p.m. They never leave a message, and if you answer, most often nobody is on the other end unless you wait several seconds.

IMPORTANT--Here are all the numbers I have collected (from me and others) so far that Portfolio Recovery uses. I cannot believe this is legal. Keep these for your reference.

205-588-8197
205-423-4020
205-588-8181
215-944-8989
239-624-8598
347-504-4345
401-551-1356
404-592-5171
404-968-4848
405-329-5714
407-347-4014
407-347-4021
412-282-1420
416-800-9148
440-580-0720
443-313-1380
484-489-2840
510-355-1780
512-519-3650
518-207-3600
602-264-2270
602-286-5100
602-795-1383
605-782-2890
620-662-8870
626-209-2241
661-673-4507
678-265-1568
678-880-8705
702-410-7069
714-408-3640
714-992-2282
714-215-8010
714-984-7690
757-321-6279
757-321-6280
757-321-6282
757-864-0020
757-961-3544
757-961-3546
757-961-3547
757-961-3548
786-206-8643
800-427-7142
800-772-1413
847-678-9710
847-994-2540
847-994-2544
858-346-1184
859-918-0780
859-918-0782
866-887-0973
866-940-7640
877-876-8723
888-218-5212
888-543-6072
914-513-0163
918-442-0320
954-622-9827

For information purposes only. Consumers with concerns regarding Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC can contact Portfolio Recovery Associates via our web site at www.praresolutioncenter.com, call and speak with one of our quality service specialists toll-free at 1-866-925-7109 or send us an e-mail at [email protected]. Quality service specialists are on staff to assist between the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday – Friday EST.

Porfolio REcovery contacted my home, reference, credit card from 1997 Visa account, now $15000 (VISA). The lowest payment they are willing to receive is $215.00 per month via checking account. They provided no evidence of authenticity of account nor if the account did exist how they came up with such an astronomical balance. Every time I ask questions they threaten to take me to court, and feel more threatened than worked with. They threaten you (fear factor) more than they validate.

This is Portfolio Recovery & Associates. They are a collection agency that acquires old debts... sometimes 20 or more years old after the original debt has been charged off or sold to several other collection agencies who did not recover the money. A lot of the information is so old that PRA does not even know who the original financial institution was or if the debt was actually ever paid off or not. They simply use old outdated information, addresses and phone numbers to harass innocent individuals. I was even told at one point that they run random credit checks on people and simply start calling if they find someone who ever had a charge off or something like that in the far past. If you have a phone number or address that was ever owned by someone who ever owed money at some point and time or your name is in any way close to someone that they are looking for you can wind up on PRAs list and start getting harassed by them forever.
I have been getting calls from them almost every day of the week for over 6 months now... sometimes 2-3 times per day anywhere from 7:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night 7 days a week.
They are looking for someone else that I have never heard of and when I told them that I was not this person and that this person never lived here and that I had this phone number for over 15 years they called me a liar and hung up but continued calling again a couple of weeks later. One time they asked me to verify my name and address. I would not tell them but I asked them what name and address they had on record. They had an entirely different first and last name but the address was the same as mine. I have a P.O. box and when I told them that there were over 400 box holders for my address he said “son of a bitch” and hung up. They recently called again and when I once again told them that I was not who they were looking for and to quit calling they asked me to verify my name again and when I would not they hung up again. The very next day they called back asking for me by my name. I guess they finally looked up my phone number and saw my name attached to it so they replaced my name for the person that they were originally looking for and added it to their collection database.
I have tried filing complaints with the do not call registry but with no results. The phone number on my caller ID is always different. I found out that they use a spoofing program to send out fake caller ID numbers so you can not report them to the do not call registry. Each and every time they call the caller ID shows up a different random number but the name is always the same... Portfolio Recovery Associates. The number that I entered on this complaint is their corporate number. They have two other numbers… a Virginia number of 1-757-519-9300 and a toll free number of 1-866-925-7109. Hopefully this will help as we all are wasting our time reporting them using the spoofed numbers that they randomly send out when they call.

It turns out that they use a spoofing program that sends out a random fake phone number to show up on your caller ID when they dial you so turning them into the do not call registry does not good as you are turning in someone else’s number. Even though the phone numbers are all different and fake… Portfolio Recovery Assoc always shows up on the caller ID.
I looked them up and got some more information from other sources and since they are using fake phone numbers when they call... the best thing that you can do is every time that they call you... file a complaint with the do not call registry using their corporate phone number 1-888-772-7326. This way you are supplying a real phone number for them when you file your complaint. Hopefully the do not call registry can do something about these people or at least be able to hand out fines to the proper people for harassing folks. The other alternative is to file a complaint with your local phone company and police dept. PRAs other two numbers are… 1-757-519-9300 for their regular office and 1-866-925-7109 for their customer complaints dept.

OK people here's how to deal with these bottom feeders if they contact you.

1) Never admit that you owe anything or give them any personal details.

2) Always ask for a verification of the alleged debt to be sent to you in writing stating the original lender, date of last payment and when they bought this debt. These are required by Federal law so that you can contact the original lender or dispute the debt.

3) When phoning the number they give you via their automated calling system advise the person who answers that the call will be recorded. This will normally result in a hang up so if you want to have fun and don't have to pay for long distance calls have fun and call them back repeatedly ;)

4) If they do continue and are not as usual abusive ask them to remove your number from their database immediately or you will start legal action for harassment. This will normally work as they know that any debt they are trying to collect is usually way past any legal collection action.

5) Within a week after (maybe) talking to them use a free site such as creditkarma.com to check your credit report. I say this as these people are known for either reporting a false payment in an attempt to reactivate the debt or they make a hard inquiry on your report to try to hurt your credit status. Both of these tactics are illegal (fraud) and if you see them used save/print your report and seek legal advice straight away.

6) Remember at all times to be polite as even if they don't advise you of it. they do routinely record calls, you want them to be in the wrong not you ;)

Finally if you do or did ever actually owe the money they are talking about check your State's statute of limitations on pursuing old debt. I would expect that even if you did owe it it's way past any legal action. BUT if you do agree and actually pay them even $1 then they can legally reactivate the debt and you personally become liable for the entire amount plus any interest they want to add!

I hope this helps someone and to be honest these tactics will work with any collection agency that uses harassment and illegal tactics to try to scare people into paying money they do not legally owe.