Who is calling me from (540) 546-0824?
Midland Credit Management (MCM) is calling from 540-546-0824. They are calling because they claim you owe a debt to their company, which their parent company bought from your original creditor. MCM is not a lender and they are not the company that opened your original account. They buy delinquent debts from other companies, often for a few cents on the dollar, and then try to collect from consumers for the full amount of the debt.
If this is the number that has been ringing on your phone, you are not alone. RoboKiller has detected more than 30,000 calls from this phone number, and CallApp has registered more than 52,000 lookup requests. Before you respond to this phone call, it is helpful to understand exactly who is calling you and what your rights are under the law.
Company Overview
Type of company: Debt collection agency (third-party debt buyer)
Parent company: Encore Capital Group (publicly traded finance company)
Address: 350 Camino de la Reina, Suite 100, San Diego, California
Industry: Credit card debt, auto loan deficiency debts, telecom debt, utility bills, consumer finance debt, retail credit, medical debt
Jurisdiction: All 50 states plus Puerto Rico
Employees: Over 4,000 (MCM only), 7,400 (companywide)
Better Business Bureau rating: Not accredited
Bad Company Track Record
MCM has a history of drawing scrutiny for the way its representatives are calling. In 2015, an investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found that MCM employees were electronically signing between 200 and 400 computer-generated affidavits per day without reviewing the underlying debts. The CFPB fined the company $10 million and ordered it to stop trying to collect on more than $125 million in debt.
A 2020 settlement with the CFPB added another $15 million in fines for violating the terms of the earlier consent order. And a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action settlement cost MCM an additional $15 million in fines specifically for calling cell phones with automatic dialing systems without consent.
When a company racks up $92 million in cumulative penalties, calls from the company on your phone warrant your full attention.
Why is Midland Credit Management calling me?
The Debt Buyer Pipeline
When an original creditor believes a debt is uncollectible, the company will typically write it off as a bad debt after six months and sell the debt to a third-party debt buyer like MCM. In 2024 alone, Encore Capital Group, MCM’s parent company, spent almost $1 billion on U.S. debt portfolios. Once MCM purchases the debt, it owns the debt and is free to try to collect it.
The problem is that purchased debt portfolios can be riddled with errors. The balance may be wrong, the statute of limitations may have expired, or the debt may not even be yours. The original creditors that sell these portfolios to MCM often qualify the information with caveats, such as that the balance is approximate or that documentation is not available. Despite this, MCM will still try to collect the debt.
It may not even be your debt
One consumer posting to 800notes summed up the frustration: “call and calls, switches #, but does NOT mention my name or debt. I call BS.” Another consumer added: “Yes I get the same, many different #s, never leaving a message, but just a couple of brief ones, which IMO is BS, since I have a 820 credit score.”
These consumers are not alone. The idea that a debt collector’s records are accurate is one of the most destructive myths in consumer finance. In reality, the validity of a debt is always in question when a third-party debt collector is involved, and challenging every debt a debt collector claims you owe is not only fair but often necessary.
What do these calls look like?
The Predictive Dialer
The experience of consumers across every complaint platform is clear: calls from 540-546-0824 exhibit all the hallmarks of a predictive dialer. MCM is dialing more consumers than it has available representatives, so when you answer and no agent is available, you hear dead air before the line disconnects.
As one consumer explained on 800notes: “Received call. Silence. They hung up after a few seconds.” Another consumer reported: “Received call @ 3:09 PM (EDT). Caller I.D. showed: ‘MCM’. I did not answer and no message was left on my voice mail.”
Consumers across every platform from RoboKiller to Nomorobo report that this phone number is a severe-activity robocaller.
Rotating Numbers and Daily Frequency
MCM is not calling from a single phone number. One RoboKiller user shared: “Calls me by first name, used different numbers, calls daily and says may be monitored, then hangs up on recordings.” Calling consumers from a rotating crop of outbound numbers makes it harder for consumers to block the calls and gives the impression of aggressive harassment.
According to CallerSmart, calls from this phone number spike on Wednesdays and Thursdays around 4:00 PM (EDT), and two-thirds of consumers classify the calls as robocalls. The volume and frequency of calls suggest an automated dialing system that aims to get as many dials as possible rather than to facilitate productive communication.
Your rights under federal law
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)
The FDCPA offers you some of the most powerful leverage you never knew you had. Under this federal consumer protection statute, you have the right to request written validation of any debt within 30 days of initial contact. You have the right to dispute any debt in writing. And you have the right to make a written request that the debt collector completely stop contacting you.
Here is the important part: the burden of proof is not on you. Debt collectors rarely retain all of the documentation associated with the debts they buy, especially if the debts have changed hands through other companies along the way. When the CFPB investigated MCM’s business practices, it found that the company was filing lawsuits against consumers even though it had no intention of proving that the underlying debts were valid. If MCM could not prove it in court, the company probably cannot prove it when you dispute the debt.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
If MCM has made an entry on your credit report, you have the right under the FCRA to dispute the item directly with the credit bureaus. The credit bureaus have 30 days to investigate, and if MCM cannot provide verification of the account along with substantiating documentation, the credit bureaus must delete the item.
This is where the dispute-first approach becomes your best friend. Rather than trying to figure out if a debt is legitimate, dispute it. Challenge MCM to provide the original signed agreement, a complete payment history, and proof of the chain of ownership from the original creditor. The proof is in the pudding: debt collectors cannot validate many debts when consumers challenge them because the documentation does not survive the debt sale process.
What can consumer complaints tell you about MCM?
Patterns in the data
The complaint history on MCM’s Better Business Bureau (BBB) profile paints an informative picture beyond individual anecdotes. The company is not accredited by the BBB, and it has generated more than 1,000 complaints in the past three years alone. The most common issues raised by consumers include:
Aggressive debt collection practices
Inaccurate information on credit reports
Failure to verify debts
Attempting to collect debts consumers do not owe
BBB complaints document patterns, not just isolated incidents. Bad ratings and high complaint counts are evidence of systemic issues that you can actually cite in support of your dispute. When a company has this kind of reputation, credit bureaus and regulators take your dispute more seriously.
The CFPB Complaint Database
The CFPB has received more than 17,000 complaints about MCM and its related companies, with the top issues including:
Attempts to collect debt not owed
Improper communication tactics
Inaccurate credit reporting
In a typical year, about 400 complaints are filed directly against Midland Credit Management. This volume of formal complaints filed with a federal agency represents just a tiny fraction of consumers who have been affected. For every person who files a CFPB complaint, there are dozens of other consumers who simply suffer through the phone calls. You do not have to be one of them.
How can you make the phone calls stop without answering your phone?
Step 1: Get your credit reports
You can request free copies of your credit reports from each of the three bureaus one time a year at AnnualCreditReport.com. Review your reports for any accounts in the names of Midland Credit Management, Midland Funding LLC, or Encore Capital Group. Make a copy of everything you find and take note of:
The reported balance
The date of first delinquency
The original creditor
Think of this as reconnaissance. You are not reading your credit report to concede its accuracy. You are reading your credit report to figure out what you need to challenge.
Step 2: Dispute with the credit bureaus
If you find MCM on your credit report, file a dispute with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. In your dispute, request that MCM verify:
The original signed credit agreement
A full and itemized payment history going back to the original creditor
A documented chain of title going back to the original creditor
Proof that the debt is still within the statute of limitations in your state
Time is on your side here. Most negative credit information can only stay on your credit report for a period of seven years from the original delinquency date. Debt buyers very rarely file lawsuits against consumers relative to the huge volume of accounts in their portfolios. Simply allowing the dispute and passage of time to run their courses is often a far better strategy than paying a debt buyer that may not be able to verify that the debt is yours in the first place.
Step 3: Send a cease-communication letter
Under the FDCPA, you can send a written letter to MCM’s headquarters at 350 Camino de la Reina, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92108 and request that the company stop calling you. Send your letter by certified mail and request a return receipt. Once MCM receives your letter, the company is obligated to stop calling you entirely, with a few narrow exceptions for communicating pending legal action.
Do not call the company. Do not engage over the phone. A written cease-communication letter creates a paper trail and triggers legal obligations that a phone call never will.
Conclusion
You have more power than you think
The phone calls from 540-546-0824 are trying to create a sense of urgency. MCM’s entire business model rests on getting consumers to react out of confusion or fear. But federal law offers a structured way to push back, and the strategy is simple: dispute the debt, demand documentation, and shift the burden of proof to where it belongs.
MCM has already paid more than $92 million in fines because regulators determined that its practices crossed a line. You are not without power here, and you do not have to accept the company’s claims at face value.
Get help from FightCollections.com
If Midland Credit Management is calling you from 540-546-0824 or any other phone number, FightCollections.com can help. The experts at FightCollections.com specialize in removing incorrect collection accounts from your credit report using the full force of the FCRA and FDCPA.
At FightCollections.com, we understand the tactics of debt buyers like MCM, where the documentation tends to fall short, and how to craft a dispute that gets the job done.
Visit FightCollections.com today to find out how we can help you reclaim your credit report and end harassing collection calls once and for all.