If you're seeing calls coming in from the phone number 866-456-0677, the caller is Barclays Bank. They're calling because you have an outstanding credit card balance with them or so they claim and their in-house collection department has your phone number on a dialing list.
But did you know that Barclays is the bank behind over 20 co-branded credit cards, such as the JetBlue credit card, the Frontier Airlines credit card, the Wyndham credit card, the Gap credit card, the Old Navy credit card, the Carnival Cruise Line credit card, and the GM credit card, just to name a few?
That's right, even if you've never banked with Barclays, you might still have a store credit card or a travel credit card that is actually a Barclays credit card account. Those calls you're getting aren't coming from some fly-by-night debt collection agency they're coming from one of the biggest banks in the world.
Full Legal Name: Barclays Bank Delaware
Company Type: First-party creditor (original credit card issuer)
Industry: Credit cards (co-branded and private-label)
Parent Company: Barclays PLC (London, UK)
US Headquarters: 125 S. West Street, Wilmington, Delaware
Size: 9th largest credit card issuer in the US, approximately 20 million cardholders, $32 billion in net receivablesBBB Rating: A+ (accredited since January 2001), with 2,930 complaints filed in the past three yearsGeographic Footprint: National (online-only bank, no physical branches, operates in all 50 states)
You're not the only one receiving calls from this phone number. Over 2,400 consumers have reported calls from this number on the RoboKiller app alone, with over 1.5 million calls tracked. The number has been listed as a robocaller on Nomorobo since December 2014, which means it has been on their radar for over eleven years.
In 2012, Barclays agreed to pay $8.26 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought under the TCPA, alleging that the bank had sent text messages to consumers about their credit card accounts without their permission. Several similar lawsuits have been filed since then.
Why is Barclays Bank calling me?
The most common reasons for a call from 866-456-0677.
Barclays is calling you from this phone number because you're believed to owe money on a credit card account with them, and their in-house collections department has identified your phone number as one to call repeatedly in an attempt to collect on the debt.
In many cases, the debt in question is a co-branded credit card account, such as a JetBlue credit card, a Wyndham credit card, or a Gap credit card, that has missed one or more payments. You might not think of the card as a Barclays credit card because the branding is on the partner company, not the bank.
However, a lot of reports of calls from this phone number are also coming from consumers who don't have any credit card accounts with Barclays at all. As one consumer reported on 800notes:
They keep calling me for a person who doesn't live here and I was cordial at first explaining that they had the wrong person and wrong address information. The one guy David became very condescending with me insisting that I was who he was looking for.
Why won't they stop calling me?
As a first-party creditor, Barclays is attempting to collect its own debts, rather than debts purchased from another creditor. Because of this, their in-house collections department has a vested interest in collecting as much of the balance as possible before the account is charged off and sold to a third-party debt collector for pennies on the dollar.
Most credit card accounts are charged off after about six months of missed payments. This is why the calls from 866-456-0677 might seem so relentless.
For Barclays, there's a ticking clock and a dollar value attached to every single delinquent credit card account. Once the debt is charged off and sold to a debt collector like Portfolio Recovery, they'll only recover a fraction of the balance. The urgency you're hearing in those calls is all about their bottom line, not your well-being.
Their go-to tactics.
The volume strategy.
One of the most common complaints about calls from 866-456-0677 is the volume. As one 800notes user put it:
It is Barclays bank. I receive 10-12 calls a day. Sundays also. They NEVER leave a message. Constant harassment.
Another consumer on the same site reports receiving calls from this number starting at 8:05 AM and going all the way through 8:59 PM, averaging about 20 calls per day, even after enrolling in a debt settlement program.
But these calls aren't coming in by accident. Instead, the volume is a purposeful tactic meant to intimidate and overwhelm you. Barclays is using an automated dialing system that keeps calling the numbers stored in it until they get an answer.
I know because I used to work for the bank and they told me this when I kept getting calls from them, even after I told them to stop calling me, wrote a former Barclays employee on ComplaintsBoard. Every time I tagged the call, I noticed that our system keeps on dialing your number especially if no answer, voice mail, and hung up.
Silent calls and the anxiety machine.
In addition to the frequency of calls from 866-456-0677, a lot of consumers are also reporting silent calls and hang-ups. As one user described the experience on 800notes:
They call from different numbers all the time. DAY and NIGHT! Sometimes when I answer, they take forever to get on the phone, if they ever come. Other times they just hang up.
This is another sign of an automated dialing system. When the system dials a number and the consumer answers, the system waits for an agent to become available before connecting the call. Sometimes, that takes a few moments. Other times, no agent is available at all, so the call gets disconnected.
When you're getting ten or fifteen calls a day and half of them are silent calls or hang-ups, that's going to make you anxious. As one ComplaintsBoard user put it:
These people call several times a day. If you don't answer, they hang up. If you do answer, they don't say anything and then hang up. It's driving my depression into the ground.
That's exactly the point.
What Barclays doesn't want you to know.
Every debt is worth questioning.
Just because Barclays is telling you that you owe a certain amount of money doesn't mean that amount is accurate. Credit card balances can balloon quickly when you factor in interest charges, late fees, over-limit fees, and penalty rate increases. As one 800notes user described:
I talked to 6 supervisors and they all told me that they were going to adjust the charges and get it straight. I paid it and they charged me more fees and interest and then started calling again.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you have the right to dispute any information on your credit reports that you believe is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable. That includes the balance reported on an account, the status of the account, the payment history of the account, and even whether or not the account belongs to you in the first place. If the credit bureaus cannot verify the disputed information with documentation, they have to delete it from your reports.
Verification is a right, not a courtesy.
Federal law says that you have the right to request verification of any debt you're being asked to pay, including the amount of the debt, the name of the original creditor, the date of the last payment on the debt, and the original agreement creating the debt. That's not something that a debt collector is doing for you as a courtesy, that's something you're entitled to under federal law.
Going through the dispute process can help you identify whether or not the information on your reports is verifiable, because often, large credit card issuers like Barclays have millions and millions of accounts, and sometimes, there are errors or discrepancies in the records that make the information reported to the credit bureaus unverifiable.
In those cases, the information has to be removed from your credit reports, not because you're getting out of a debt that you owe, but because the creditor cannot meet their burden of proof to verify that the information they are reporting is actually yours.
Why you should never speak directly with the collection agency.
Answering the phone resets their clock.
Every time you answer a call from 866-456-0677, you're giving Barclays exactly what their dialer is looking for: a live contact. Once you make contact with a live person, you've just confirmed for the dialer that your phone number is live and that you'll answer calls.
Plus, you've just opened yourself up for a conversation in which you might make verbal commitments or acknowledgments that can be used against you. And if you make any kind of admission about the debt during that call, you may have just reset the clock on the statute of limitations.
That's right, if you haven't heard from a creditor on one of your debts in a while, it's possible that the statute of limitations the amount of time that a creditor or debt collector can legally sue you over a debt has run out. If that's the case, they can't sue you for it anymore.
But if you make contact with them in any way, including a phone call, you can restart the clock. That's one of the reasons why you should never answer calls from 866-456-0677.
Hiring a consumer advocacy firm like ours levels the playing field.
When you have a professional advocate working on your behalf, everything changes. Creditors know that they're facing a company that will communicate with them properly and will make them follow the rules, or risk facing a lawsuit.
Once a dispute is filed, the burden is on Barclays to prove that what they're reporting on you is accurate and complete. If they can't do that which is more common than you might think, especially when you're dealing with a bank as large as Barclays then they have to fix the information or remove it altogether.
That's different from trying to negotiate with a debt collector who is just interested in getting as much money out of you as possible.
Now what? Your step-by-step guide to getting results.
First, stop answering calls from 866-456-0677, and any other numbers that Barclays might be calling you from (we've seen reports of calls from other numbers like 866-408-4070, 866-456-0684, and 866-832-4459). Don't call them back, don't discuss payment with them, and don't give them any additional information about yourself. Block the number if you can.
Next, order copies of all three of your credit reports and search for any information about Barclays. Make a note of the balance, status, date of last activity, and any discrepancies you notice between your three reports (it's not uncommon for the different credit bureaus to have slightly different information, and those discrepancies can give you a lot to work with).
Finally, file disputes on any information about Barclays that you believe is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable. Remember, the goal here is to make sure that everything Barclays is reporting about you is accurate and verifiable because if it's not, then it shouldn't be on your credit report at all.
Let FightCollections.com handle the fight for you.
You don't have to deal with this on your own.
At FightCollections.com, we specialize in removing invalid and unverifiable collection accounts from consumers' credit reports. We know the documentation that creditors like Barclays are required to provide in order to report information on your credit reports, and we know where they're most likely to slip up.
Let us help you! Contact us today for a free consultation. We'll take a close look at your credit reports, identify all of the information that you can dispute, and talk about a strategy for cleaning up your credit report.
Those calls from 866-456-0677 are meant to make you feel like you don't have any power, but the truth is that you have a lot more power than you think you do.
