412-802-3100 belongs to Nationwide Credit Inc. The company is calling you because it thinks you owe a debt – or because it thinks you know someone who does.
In either case, the calls won’t stop until you make them, and answering the phone might do more harm than good.
Nationwide Credit Inc is a third-party debt collection agency. That means it doesn’t own any of the debts it’s collecting; instead, it gets a commission from the original creditor whenever it successfully collects a balance. The company goes by the initials NCI for short.
Here’s what you need to know about it:
Nationwide Credit Inc (NCI) is a third-party debt collection agency, a subsidiary of Transworld Systems Inc (TSI), owned by Platinum Equity. It is headquartered in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania and was founded in 1947 as American Creditors Bureau.
The company collects credit cards, banking, auto loans, healthcare, telecom, utilities, and insurance debts. Notable clients include American Express and Chase Bank.
It is not BBB accredited. The company operates nationally, with offices in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.
Nationwide Credit has been sued more than 570 times in federal court, mostly under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which is the main law governing the actions of debt collection agencies.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought two enforcement actions against the company. In 1998, the FTC fined Nationwide Credit $1 million – the largest civil penalty it had ever imposed in a debt collection case at that time – for violations that included harassment, the use of obscene language, and calling consumers at work after they said they couldn’t be called there.
Nationwide Credit’s website doesn’t mention the fine, but it does acknowledge that the company “instituted significant operational and procedural changes to enhance [its] already robust compliance program.”
Scores of complaints against Nationwide Credit are on file at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Many more can be found on consumer review websites like the Better Business Bureau (BBB), where the company isn’t accredited. On the BBB website, many of the complaints against Nationwide Credit echo the problems the FTC cited in its 1998 enforcement action.
You aren’t alone if you’re getting these calls, and the situation might not be as dire as you fear. There’s a tried-and-true strategy for dealing with this company and others like it.
What Kind of Debt Does Nationwide Credit Inc Collect?
Nationwide Credit is a generalist agency that collects many different types of debt. Based on the complaints filed against the company, the most common debts it chases are credit card debts owed to American Express and Chase. However, Nationwide Credit also collects medical debt, auto loans, telecom debt, utility debt, and insurance debt.
Because Nationwide Credit doesn’t purchase debt directly – instead, it works strictly on a contingency basis – the debts it’s calling you about have already changed hands at least once. The more times a debt changes hands, the higher the likelihood that the information associated with it is incorrect or incomplete.
The company might be calling you about a debt you don’t actually owe. It’s also possible that it’s calling you by mistake because it’s trying to reach someone else.
Why Nationwide Credit Inc Could Be Calling You for the Wrong Person
If you’re getting calls from Nationwide Credit but have no idea why, you’re in good company. Many of the complaints against the company describe consumers who say they’ve never had any debts with the original creditor the company mentions – but that they do recognize the name associated with the account.
One CFPB complaint tells the story of an ex-wife who got calls from Nationwide Credit about a debt her ex-husband incurred a few years after they divorced. She told the company multiple times that she wasn’t responsible for the debt and asked it to stop calling her, but the calls kept coming.
Another complaint describes someone who kept getting calls from Nationwide Credit about a debt associated with an unfamiliar name. When she told a representative that she didn’t know anyone by that name, he told her to “get a life” and hung up the phone.
That behavior sounds about right based on what a lot of other consumers have said about their experiences with Nationwide Credit.
What Happens When You Answer the Phone?
Consumers who answer the phone when Nationwide Credit calls describe a range of experiences. Here’s one caller’s story, from ComplaintsBoard:
“I called them back after a blocked number call, and [the woman] told me what my monthly payment was for my American Express card. I asked her to tell me what company she worked for and she wouldn’t tell me. I asked her a second time to tell me what company she worked for and she still wouldn’t tell me.”
A similar story popped up on CallerCenter: When I told her [the representative] that she had the wrong number, she started cursing me out and continued to call me until I disconnected my home phone.
On the BBB website, a man said he told a Nationwide Credit representative to take his number off the company’s call list and was told, “that’s not how this works.”
When Do Nationwide Credit Inc’s Calls Come?
Based on the consumer reports, Nationwide Credit calls frequently and at all hours. Here’s a sampling of what people have said about when the company calls:
800notes: “5 calls today between noon and 8:20 PM”
CallerCenter: “My friend received over 20 calls in 3 days”
ComplaintsBoard: “They called me every 10 minutes for 36 hours because I was 5 days late on a payment. When I asked the agent if this was their policy, she confirmed that it was.”
One caller on 800notes reported getting a call at 5:33 AM on a Sunday. Another reported getting a call at 9:30 PM on a Friday. Many consumers have noted that the company never leaves voicemails.
Why You Shouldn’t Call Nationwide Credit Inc Directly
Don’t bother calling Nationwide Credit directly to ask it to stop calling you. Instead of calling, some consumers have tried writing what’s called a “goodwill letter” asking the company to remove the debt from their credit reports.
However, collection agencies can’t honor requests like that. They make money by threatening to report debts to the credit bureaus or withholding that information in exchange for payment. They aren’t going to give up that leverage voluntarily.
Others have tried calling the company directly to negotiate. That’s a risky strategy because anything you say on the phone could restart the clock on a debt that’s past its statute of limitations, confirm identifying information that makes the debt easier to collect, or be used as evidence that you acknowledged owing the debt.
Here’s how one consumer described her experience on the BBB website:
“I sent two certified letters to NCI over the course of 3 months requesting validation of the debt. Never received a response, but they continued to report this account to my credit report.”
If you aren’t careful about how you communicate with Nationwide Credit, you could inadvertently make your situation worse.
Pressure Can Be a Powerful Motivator
When you’re in debt and your phone won’t stop ringing, you might be tempted to do just about anything to make the calls stop. The calls from Nationwide Credit are designed to create that kind of urgency in you.
Many consumers who make payment arrangements in a state of panic wind up with worse terms than they could have gotten if they’d followed a more structured process for disputing the debt.
Some people who agreed to payments from Nationwide Credit have reported on ComplaintsBoard that the company debited more from their bank accounts than it was supposed to or that it withdrew money without their permission:
“I made an agreement to pay a debt through automatic debiting. They continued to debit my account for the amount past the agreed upon final payment amount. I am now negative in my account.”
“I made a payment arrangement with this company and they withdrew the money without my permission. I have rent and grocery money to pay and they just took it out of my account without my permission. The debt was for $3,500.”
The sooner you can get Nationwide Credit to stop calling, the better. The good news is that you have more leverage in this situation than you realize.
How to Use the FCRA and FDCPA to Your Advantage
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the FDCPA aren’t just laws you can use as a shield to defend yourself against debt collector harassment. You can also use them as a sword to attack and remove collection accounts from your report that the collector can’t validate.
The FCRA says that information on your credit report must be verifiable, accurate, and supported by documentation that the entity reporting it can produce any time you ask for it.
When you dispute something on your credit report, the entity reporting it has 30 days to respond with documentation showing that the information is both accurate and verifiable. Many collectors can’t meet that deadline or can’t come up with the underlying documentation – particularly if the debt has changed hands several times before it landed with an agency like Nationwide Credit.
If the collector can’t validate a debt within the allotted time frame, it must delete the account from your credit report. That isn’t a loophole or trick; it’s just the law working the way it’s supposed to work to protect consumers from unverified collection activity.
How a Credit Repair Company Can Help
Consumers facing debt collection often try to navigate the system on their own, but working with a credit repair company can be a more effective strategy.
For one thing, a credit repair company has expertise in filing disputes and understanding how the process works. But its biggest value might be the buffer it provides between you and the debt collector.
When you work with a credit repair company, you don’t have to talk to Nationwide Credit on the phone. You don’t have to worry that a collector will trick you into saying something incriminating or intimidate you into making a deal that isn’t in your best interests. And you don’t have to spend time tracking the paperwork and following up when the collector inevitably misses a deadline, as NCI often does based on the complaints against it.
The company handles all that for you while you simply wait for the outcome.
What to Do If Nationwide Credit Inc Is Calling You
If you’re getting calls from 412-802-3100, you’re dealing with a collection agency that’s been fined, sued, and sanctioned for the same behaviors consumers keep complaining about. The calls won’t stop just because you want them to, and letters almost certainly won’t get results unless they have the force of law behind them.
Your best bet in this situation is to file a formal dispute that makes NCI prove it has a legitimate reason for reporting the debt. That’s where the FCRA and FDCPA give consumers real power to fight back.
Let us help you fight this debt. At FightCollections.com, we specialize in disputing collection accounts that can’t survive a little scrutiny. We know all the ways collectors like Nationwide Credit Inc shoot themselves in the foot and create opportunities to get accounts removed.
You don’t have to keep dodging calls from 412-802-3100. Contact us today for a free consultation and let us put the squeeze on the debt collector instead of the other way around.
