(800) 383-8013

They called looking for my sister in law. Wanted me to give out her number. They said she gave my number as her contact. I'm sure that's a lie.

Wells Fargo Bank

Very worrisome company. Most often the person they want doesnt live there.

Message left on parents phone concerning 10+year old debt.

Portfolio Recovery has somewhat of a bad reputation, as evidenced by my searching on the Internet in the last two days. While I am all for sticking it to them for unlawful practices they may have committed, I am also aware that identity theft does not just happen to people, it can happen to a company as well.

What happened to me below seems more like a scam from someone else rather than Portfolio Recovery engaging in questionable practices, so I thought I would put it here. Foxing a caller ID to give out a different number that what you are calling from is not a particularly difficult feat.

My step-father in Chicago received a call last night from a woman who gave her name as Stephanie Paige (or Page), purporting to be from Portfolio Recovery, trying to seek information on collection of a debt. He did not give her any information, but he called me. I had cordial dealings with this company in the past when I worked to retire an old debt, now paid, so I did a little on-line research to find out what was going on.

I then made this report to the Federal Trade Commission this afternoon: A person who identified herself as Stephanie Page (or Paige), alleging to be from Portfolio Recovery contacted my step-father in Chicago on December 30, purporting to be recovering a debt. While that person called from (800) 383-8013, the number they gave to return a call was (866) 909-0529.

A Reverse Telephone number lookup on the Internet for the second telephone number yielded hundreds of blog posts from people fishing for all sorts of information or posting about threats or demands. After a reverse telephone number search of the first telephone number indicated that it was indeed Portfolio Recovery, today I called it to ascertain what the original call to my step-father was about.

The agent (unnamed) looked up my account on the company computer system, and told me that all she had for me was an old debt which was paid in full in 2007. The agent also told me they had no record of a call to another person about a debt collection, and that Portfolio Recovery had no record of any debt outstanding for me. FTC complaint number: 28707180