Are you getting calls from 855-267-7451? You guessed it... Professional Finance Company.
They're calling because they think you owe a debt – probably a medical bill that was sent to collections by a health care provider.
PFC is one of the most aggressive debt collection agencies in the country. Consumers who have been contacted by this agency on various review platforms all describe the same experience: repeated calls, cryptic messages, and demands for sensitive information before they'll even tell you why they called.
Who is Professional Finance Company?
Type: Third-party debt collection agency and debt buyer
Headquarters: Greeley, CO 80634
Founded: 1904 (current entity incorporated in 1985)
Ownership: Privately held (family-owned)
Focus: Medical and health care debt
Size: 175 employees (estimated), $16-$22M annual revenue (estimated)
Clients: Over 1,200 health care providers across the country, including Banner Health, Renown Health, and Bayhealth Medical Center
BBB Rating: A+ accredited since 1984, but only 2/5 stars based on consumer reviews
What Their Consumer Reviews Say
PFC has won several industry awards for excellence in health care collections, but their consumer reviews tell a very different story. The phone number 855-267-7451 has been identified on the RoboKiller platform alone as making almost 33,000 calls, with 180 users flagging it as a blacklisted debt collector.
In 2016, a federal court ruling in Bledsoe v. Professional Finance Company, Inc. found that PFC had violated multiple provisions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by using language in collection letters that implied interest and late fees could be applied to debts when in fact no such charges were permitted.
Why is Professional Finance Company calling me?
How Medical Debt Ends Up in Collections
The vast majority of consumers who have been contacted by PFC are dealing with medical debt of some kind. A health care provider bills your insurance company, you get stuck with a balance that you don't pay, and after the provider's billing department tries and fails to get you to pay up, they assign your account to PFC for collection.
PFC has multiple divisions that handle accounts at various stages. Their “PFC First” division handles “early-out” accounts, serving as an extension of the provider's billing department. Their “PFC Rev” division handles “bad debt” recovery after accounts have been charged off in full.
It's extremely common for medical billing to contain errors of some kind – incorrect coding, insurance processing mistakes, communication breakdowns about patient responsibility amounts, and so on. This creates a steady stream of accounts that never should have been sent to collections in the first place.
The Debt Buyer Angle
PFC also has a division called “PFC Funding” that purchases distressed receivables directly from lenders, banks, hospitals, and other medical service providers. When a debt collection agency buys debt, they're typically paying mere pennies on the dollar for portfolios of defaulted accounts.
That means the paper trail connecting the original creditor to the current collector is often incomplete. When debt changes hands, paperwork gets lost. Account details get corrupted. The collector's ability to prove that you owe the debt diminishes with each transfer.
Using those paperwork gaps to challenge the accuracy of a collection account on your credit report is not a “loophole.” It's not an ethical gray area. It's the system working exactly as it's supposed to under federal consumer protection law.
How does this collection agency operate?
The Predictive Dialer Problem
PFC uses something called a predictive dialer, which means that automated technology is dialing several numbers at once until a live agent becomes available to take a call. This is why so many people report answering the phone only to find dead air on the other end of the line... or an automated voice telling them to hold for just a minute.
One consumer who posted about the experience on 800Notes reported that PFC would “call me 3-5 times a day at work and they never answer and they never leave a message.”
Another consumer who flagged the number on ShouldIAnswer said that PFC will “often hang up while sort of pretending to leave a message.”
This pattern of abandoned calls isn't just annoying. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), excessive robocall contact without meaningful communication can rise to the level of a violation.
The Information Verification Trap
The single tactic that PFC callers use most often, based on consumer reports, involves demanding that you verify your identity before they're willing to tell you why they called.
One EveryCaller user described the conversation like this: “She proceeded to ask me to verify my name, and address, which I wouldn't give until I knew what they were calling about. She said it was a personal matter and that I had to verify my identity first.”
Another consumer reported that the caller asked for their Social Security number, and when they refused to give it, tried verifying their identity using an old address without telling them what it was. This puts consumers in a Catch-22.
What are real consumers saying about the experience?
Wrong-Number Contacts That Won't Stop
One of the most common complaints is about wrong-number calls that PFC won't stop unless you're willing to give them your personal information. One 800Notes user reported calling the number back and discovering that it was “Professional Finance which is a collection agency that had the wrong number.”
One EveryCaller user reported telling PFC to take their number off the list, but the caller “would not do anything until she got my name.” When the consumer told her no, she simply said “have a nice day” and hung up, leaving wrong-number recipients in a never-ending cycle of calls they don't want.
Vagueness Raising Red Flags
More recent complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau indicate that PFC is now using text messages as an initial point of contact. One reviewer reported getting “a very vague and suspicious looking text message that I had been sent to collections and owed a debt with just a link to login to with a passcode.”
Another said they were never contacted about an outstanding bill and simply got a notice that they'd been sent to collections over a small medical balance. These notification practices raise questions about whether PFC is fulfilling its FDCPA obligations to send adequate debt validation notices.
Your rights are stronger than you think.
Federal laws that protect you
The FDCPA and the FCRA are not just shields to defend yourself against abusive collection practices. They're swords you can use offensively to force the collector to prove its claims and bear the burden of proof.
Under the FDCPA, a debt collector is required to send you written validation of the debt within five days of initial contact. Under the FCRA, every single item on your credit report must be verifiable. It must be accurate. And it must be complete. And when you dispute an item on your credit report, the collection agency has just 30 days to investigate and verify the information.
If it can't – if it can't produce the original documentation that proves the debt is yours, and that it's been accurately reported – the account must be deleted. The Bledsoe ruling against PFC proves that even established collection agencies can make procedural mistakes that you can use to your advantage through the right dispute strategy.
Time is on your side
Collection accounts can only stay on your credit report for seven years from the original delinquency date. And statutes of limitation on filing debt collection lawsuits vary from state to state, but they typically range from three to six years. Most collection agencies – including PFC – very rarely file suit because it's expensive and the potential return is uncertain.
That means time is on your side. Every month that ticks by puts you one month closer to the point when that account will fall off your credit report altogether. And state and federal wage garnishment exemptions protect more of your income (and your assets) than you probably realize – including Social Security benefits, disability benefits, and in many cases, a significant portion of the wages you earn.
How do I make the calls stop for good?
Dispute the account on your credit report
The best way to get Professional Finance Company to stop calling you is not to call them back. It's to dispute the account directly with the credit reporting bureaus. When you file a dispute, the bureau will notify PFC that it needs to verify the account.
Given PFC's business model – which relies heavily on its PFC Funding division purchasing distressed debt from various lenders – the paper trail between you and the original creditor may not be complete. A properly filed dispute will force PFC to either produce the paperwork (if it exists) or accept deletion of the account.
Protect yourself
Most consumers don't realize how many protections they already have. Garnishment exemptions. Statute of limitations. Credit reporting time limits. All of these things work in your favor.
Paying a collection account can actually reset the clock on some of these protections. Disputing the account through the credit bureaus instead of dealing directly with the collector is a much stronger strategic play. The goal here is deletion of the account, not negotiation.
The bottom line
Professional Finance Company has been making calls from the phone number 855-267-7451 for over a decade, and the script hasn't changed. Predictive dialers. Demands for sensitive information. Wrong-number calls. Vagueness. All of these are tools in the kit of a debt collector that's relying on your confusion to get you to pay up.
In 2022, PFC reported a data breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 1.9M people, resulting in a $2.5M class action settlement. The law says you have the right to demand verification. The law says you have the right to dispute inaccurate accounts and force collectors to prove their claims. The law says you have the right to hold collectors accountable when they fail to meet their obligations under federal law.
Take action today
If Professional Finance Company is calling you, it's time to punch back – through the credit bureaus, not over the phone. At FightCollections.com, we help consumers dispute erroneous collection accounts, understand their rights, and take control of their financial future.
You don't have to answer that call. You don't have to verify your identity to some stranger on the phone. And you don't have to accept a collection account on your credit report without demanding proof.
