Are you getting calls from 800-317-0023? If so, Portfolio Recovery Associates is on the other end of the line. The main purpose for these calls is to collect on a debt that the company bought from a third party, and they believe that you owe on it.
Before taking any action (which should not include answering or returning the call), you should know a little more about who’s calling you.
Who Is Portfolio Recovery Associates?
Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, is one of the largest debt buyers in the United States. Here’s what consumers should know about the company calling you:
Debt collection agency Subsidiary: PRA Group, Inc. (publicly traded, NASDAQ) Headquartered: Norfolk, VA Annual revenue: Over $1.12 billion (2024) Employees: Over 3,200 employees in 18 countries Regions served: Nationwide, including all 50 states and international markets Types of debt: Primarily credit card debt, but also includes consumer loans, auto deficiency balances, and store credit cards
PRA Group is the second-largest debt buyer in the country. Together with Encore Capital Group, the two companies have bought up the rights to over $200 billion in delinquent consumer debt. This is a very big, very corporate debt collection company. If you’re fielding calls from 800-317-0023, you’re probably not the first person they’ve called, either.
The Calls from 800-317-0023
If you’re feeling hounded or harassed by calls from 800-317-0023, you’re not alone. Portfolio Recovery Associates has paid over $79 million in penalties to regulators over allegations of unlawful debt collection. In 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined PRA $27 million for attempting to collect on unsubstantiated debts and filing court affidavits with false or misleading information.
In 2023, the CFPB penalized PRA again, calling the company a “repeat offender” and fining them an additional $24.18 million for sending threatening letters and filing court actions against consumers without having proper documentation. We’ll go into more details about PRA’s enforcement history later on. For now, just know that you’re not being paranoid, and you’re not alone.
Why Is Portfolio Recovery Associates Calling Me?
They bought someone’s old debt
PRA doesn’t lend money or issue credit. It’s a debt-buying company. This means that its entire business model is based on buying old debts from the original creditors (banks, credit card companies, retailers, etc.) at a discount. According to industry reports, the average price debt buyers pay for delinquent debts is between 5-15 cents on the dollar.
This means that if PRA is calling you about a $3,000 credit card debt, they might have paid $150 for it. They don’t need you to pay the full amount to make a profit; the margins are already built in to their purchase price.
You may not owe this debt
One of the most common complaints about calls from 800-317-0023 is that they’re calling the wrong person altogether. When debts get sold and resold, the accompanying paperwork can get lost or garbled along the way. Names get confused with other names, and old phone numbers get assigned to new people.
“I get a call every day from this number from Portfolio Recovery wanting to speak with either a ‘Ginny’ or ‘Jenny’ Lee,” one RoboKiller user reported. “There is no one but me who uses my phone, and I’m not Jenny or Ginny Lee.”
“I get 5 or 6 calls a day for somebody I’ve never even heard of,” another user posted on 800notes.
Even if PRA has the right person on the phone, the underlying debt might be too old to collect, might have already been discharged in a bankruptcy, or might just be wrong. “Junk debt buyers like Portfolio Recovery Associates bought this debt,” one consumer reported. “This credit card balance was discharged in bankruptcy proceedings.”
The Voice on the Other End
How PRA works the phone lines
The call data tells us that we’re dealing with a massive operation here. RoboKiller has tracked over 108,000 calls from the 800-317-0023 number alone, with 814 reports from individual consumers. Nomorobo rates this number’s call volume as “Severe.”
What makes PRA’s calling behavior so particularly galling is that the company rotates through different numbers. If you block 800-317-0023, they’ll just use a different number to call you. “Debt collector that calls with various 800 and local numbers trying to get you to answer,” one consumer reported. “They seem to have an unlimited amount of phone numbers.”
They’ll also use local phone numbers that appear to be nearby. “Portfolio Recovery spoofed this number,” a ShouldIAnswer user reported. “I haven’t lived in this area code for over 20 years.”
What happens when they reach your voicemail
Perhaps the most telling thing about PRA’s calling patterns, though, is what happens when they don’t actually reach you. Across every major complaint platform, we see the same thing: Portfolio Recovery Associates almost never leaves a message.
“Portfolio Recovery calls all hours 7 days a week,” a CallFilter.app user reported. “Caller ID alerts me to who is calling, Portfolio Recovery CHOOSES not to leave a message.”
This is a deliberate strategy, designed to create pressure. Your phone rings over and over again, but you never get a message explaining why. Most people, upon seeing this pattern, will pick up or call the number back. That’s exactly what the debt collector wants. As soon as you engage, the conversation will shift to paying your debt. You need to fight that reflex.
Know the red flags of an illegal collector
Warning signs that they’ve crossed the line
Just because a debt collector is pushing hard to get paid doesn’t mean they’ve broken the law. But there are some specific behaviors that cross very bright legal lines. Debt collectors are not allowed to harass consumers with excessive phone calls, threaten them with arrest for debts they can’t or won’t pay, impersonate government officials, or use profanity or other abusive language.
Here are some red flags to watch for: the debt collector demands immediate payment and is unwilling to discuss details, threatens to sue or arrest you, refuses to provide written verification of the debt, or keeps calling even after you’ve told them to stop. Any of these behaviors may be violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
As you can see from PRA’s enforcement history, these aren’t hypothetical concerns. In 2023, the CFPB found that PRA had sent millions of threatening letters and filed thousands of lawsuits without having the proper documentation to back up its claims. The Massachusetts attorney general found that the company had misled consumers (including those receiving Social Security or disability benefits) about their rights.
Your right to demand proof
The FDCPA gives consumers the right to demand verification of a debt from a collection agency. The collector has to provide you with the full amount you owe, the name of the original creditor, and proof that it owns the account. If it can’t, it has to stop trying to collect.
You have this right because debt buying is a messy business. When debts change hands multiple times, documentation can get lost or misplaced. When a debt buyer like PRA purchases a package of thousands of delinquent accounts for pennies on the dollar, it may not be getting complete or verified records.
The CFPB’s 2015 enforcement action against PRA revealed that the company was collecting on debts it couldn’t substantiate. The 2023 action revealed that it was still doing it eight years later. If PRA can’t prove you owe this money, you shouldn’t have to pay it.
How to make the calls stop without picking up the phone
Check your credit report first
Before you do anything else, request copies of your credit reports from all three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Look to see if you have any accounts listing Portfolio Recovery Associates as the creditor. Make a note of the balance, the original creditor, and whether any of this information looks familiar to you.
Your credit report is a reconnaissance tool. It tells you exactly what PRA is saying about you, which gives you the information you need to craft an effective dispute. If PRA has made an error or inaccuracy on your report – or if the item is simply too old to be collected, or if it’s something you’ve already paid or discharged in bankruptcy – you can dispute it under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
Dispute the account through the proper channels
The best way to deal with Portfolio Recovery Associates is not to call them back. It’s to challenge the accuracy of what they’ve reported to your credit file. Under the FCRA, the credit reporting agencies are required to investigate any disputed item and remove it if they can’t verify it.
This is important because PRA’s history shows a clear pattern of reporting information it can’t verify. In 2023, the CFPB specifically cited PRA for FCRA violations that included failure to investigate consumer disputes and failure to maintain reasonable procedures designed to assure accuracy.
When a consumer files a well-supported dispute, the burden is on PRA to show that the account is accurate. An experienced consumer advocacy firm that specializes in credit report disputes can help you make sure your dispute is formatted in a way that will have the maximum impact. You’re not trying to negotiate with PRA here; you’re trying to hold them to the reporting standards they’ve already failed to meet.
Conclusion
Take back control of your phone
The calls from 800-317-0023 are designed to make you feel urgency and panic. Portfolio Recovery Associates has built a billion-dollar business on the assumption that eventually, most people will pick up and agree to pay. The spoofed phone numbers, the refusal to leave voicemails, the sheer volume of calls every day – it’s all part of a strategy designed to wear you down.
But you have more power here than you think you do. Under federal law, you have the right to demand proof before you pay them a single dime. Under the FCRA, you have the right to dispute inaccurate information on your credit report. And PRA’s own history shows that in many cases, their documentation isn’t nearly good enough to meet the burden of proof.
You don’t have to accept this as the status quo. You don’t have to live with a phone that rings all day and all night from numbers you don’t recognize.
FightCollections.com is a consumer advocacy firm that specializes in helping people fight back against debt collectors like Portfolio Recovery Associates by disputing inaccurate information on their credit reports. If PRA has put something on your credit report that shouldn’t be there, contact our team today for a free consultation.