Receiving a call from 877-394-5975? It’s from CardWorks Servicing, who are trying to collect a credit card debt or loan that you may or may not owe to a creditor such as Merrick Bank, Advanta Bank or any other bank they work with.
Regardless of whether you actually owe the debt or not, you won’t stop getting calls from them. In the debt collection business, “follow up” calls are really psychological tactics meant to break your will to avoid dealing with them.
In this article, we will cover who CardWorks Servicing is, why they are calling you, how they operate, and most importantly, how to get rid of them without actually having to talk to them on the phone.
Here is some basic information about the company that is calling you from 877-394-5975:
Company Name: CardWorks Servicing, LLC
Parent Company: CardWorks, Inc., founded in 1987
Industry: Third-party credit card and loan servicer
Collection Arm: Carson Smithfield, LLC (the company calling from 877-394-5975)
Headquarters: Woodbury, New York
Size: Privately-held; the largest private credit card servicer in North America; over 6 million accounts; approximately $4.7 billion in assets
Sister Company: Merrick Bank Corporation, a top-20 U.S. credit card issuer
BBB Rating: A- (not accredited); 1 out of 5 customer review stars; 68 complaints in 3 years
You’re Not the Only One
Are you getting multiple calls per day from 877-394-5975? You’re not the only one. RoboKiller alone has registered over 815,000 calls from this phone number, with more than 2,240 consumer complaints.
Over 70 federal lawsuits have been filed against CardWorks Servicing and its collection affiliate, Carson Smithfield, including at least 52 cases in a 3-year span alleging that the company called too frequently, made threats and tried to collect debts that weren’t owed. If you’re getting calls from 877-394-5975, you should know that these people play hardball.
Why Is CardWorks Servicing Calling Me?
The Credit Card and Loan Servicing Connection
CardWorks Servicing is not a lender. They don’t issue credit cards or make loans. Instead, they serve as a third-party back office for banks and other lenders, handling customer service, processing payments and collecting delinquent debts.
In January 2025, CardWorks acquired Ally Financial’s credit card portfolio, worth $2.3 billion and spanning 1.3 million cardholders. If you ever held an Ally credit card, your account may now be serviced by CardWorks.
Debt collection agencies aren’t transparent about which creditors they collect for, and that information can change constantly as portfolios are bought and sold. That lack of transparency is deliberate. It keeps you in the dark and makes it almost impossible for you to verify the information.
Carson Smithfield Is the Voice on the Line
When a credit card account that CardWorks services goes into charge-off status, it is turned over to Carson Smithfield, LLC, the company’s post-charge-off collection affiliate. Carson Smithfield is the company making the calls from 877-394-5975.
Most consumers who complain about this number say the caller either identifies himself as Carson Smithfield or doesn’t identify himself at all. Federal law says that debt collectors have to identify themselves. The fact that so many consumers can’t even get a straight answer as to who’s calling them tells you a lot about how these calls are conducted.
Their Favorite Pressure Points
The Wear-Down Campaign
The most common complaint about 877-394-5975 is the frequency of the calls. Consumers say they’re being called anywhere from 4 to 10 or more times a day, 7 days a week, with calls starting as early as 7 or 8 in the morning.
“I receive a call from 877-394-5975 about 10 times every day,” a consumer wrote on CallerCenter. “I never answer. They never leave a message.”
“They call me several times a day,” a consumer wrote on YouMail. “Over 400 unanswered calls from these jack holes.”
This isn’t follow-up. This is a deliberate strategy to make the ringing so incessant that you finally answer the phone and say something they can use. Every unanswered call is just another way of ratcheting up the pressure.
Guilt as a Weapon
When consumers do answer, the tactics shift to emotional manipulation. Collectors rely heavily on urgency, credit score threats and vague references to legal repercussions because guilt is one of the most potent tools in the debt collection business.
“The guy was nasty, rude and tried threatening me and intimidating me,” a consumer wrote on ShouldIAnswer.
“They threatened to come to my job to file docs,” a consumer wrote on Tellows. “They also left a notice at my house.”
The fact that you “owe” a debt is a powerful guilt trip, which is why your response has to be clinical and procedural, not moral. You don’t owe a debt collector an explanation. You certainly don’t owe them an apology.
What Real Consumers Are Saying About 877-394-5975
Robocalls, Dead Air and Caller ID Tricks
Nomorobo first flagged 877-394-5975 as a robocaller in December 2014. Multiple consumers describe the distinctive sound of an autodialer: the phone rings, you pick it up and there’s only silence, followed by a click or a recorded message saying the caller will wait for the next available representative.
“They called my cell,” a consumer wrote on 800Notes. “I answered. No one there, just a recording of, ‘wait for the next availability rep.’ You’re on my time. You call, I answer, I expect to hear a person on the other end of that line.”
Others say the company is using caller ID spoofing. “I just received a call from this number and the caller ID said Nordstrom’s,” a consumer warned on CallerCenter. “They will stop at nothing!”
When a debt collector spoofs your caller ID, that’s not a sign of good faith.
Wrong Numbers and Debts That Don’t Add Up
A surprising number of complaints come from consumers who say they don’t owe any debt. “Don’t know why these turds are calling me,” a consumer wrote on CallerCenter. “I have a credit score of 830, no debt, and all my utilities are auto-drafted.”
Others say they’re being contacted about debts that were discharged in bankruptcy years ago, or about accounts with creditors they’ve never heard of. If a debt collector says you owe a debt, that’s not proof that you actually do. Gaps in documentation and portfolios that were purchased with errors mean the burden of proof is on them, not you.
Multiple consumers say that even after they sent cease-and-desist letters — even from attorneys — the calls didn’t stop. “They called me multiple times a day even after I sent them a cease-and-desist letter,” a consumer wrote on 800Notes. “I even filed a TCPA lawsuit against them.”
Why You Should Never Pick Up the Phone
Silence Is Your Strongest Position
Everything you tell a debt collector can and will be used against you. Consumers say that collectors calling from this number ask for their full Social Security number before they’ll explain why they’re calling.
“These people call and ask for full social security number and keep saying they can’t explain why they call unless they get the social security number or account info,” a consumer wrote on CallerCenter. That’s not standard operating procedure. That’s a fishing expedition.
Your first point of contact should never be the debt collector. Before you utter a single word to anyone who’s calling you from 877-394-5975, you should have a strategy in place. A credit repair expert can review your situation, look at your credit report and help you determine whether the debt they’re trying to collect actually exists.
Your Credit Report Is the Real Battlefield
Here’s what debt collectors don’t want you to know: the best way to handle a collection account isn’t to negotiate with the collector. It’s to dispute the account with the credit bureaus.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, every item on your credit report has to be accurate, verifiable and complete. If a collection agency can’t produce the original documentation to prove that a debt is yours, the credit bureaus have to delete it.
CardWorks services debt that has been purchased and resold through multiple corporate entities, from Advanta to Merrick Bank to Ally Financial. The paper trail is long and frequently broken, which means there are plenty of opportunities to dispute the debt that wouldn’t be available if you dealt with the collector directly.
Take Control of the Situation
What FightCollections.com Does Differently
At FightCollections.com, we don’t tell you to call them back. We don’t tell you to negotiate a settlement. We don’t tell you to accept the guilt trip that their calling campaign is designed to lay on you.
Instead, we go to work on your credit report. We find the collection accounts. We challenge any information that’s inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable. And we force the credit reporting agencies to do their jobs. If the documentation isn’t there — and with debt that’s changed hands multiple times, it frequently isn’t — the account gets removed.
That’s a much more powerful outcome than anything you could achieve by answering your phone.
Stop the Calls. Start the Dispute.
If you’re getting calls from 877-394-5975, you should know that you have plenty of options beyond blocking the phone number. The calls are just a symptom. The collection account on your credit report is the disease.
Contact FightCollections.com today for a free consultation. Let us take a look at your credit report and identify what CardWorks Servicing or Carson Smithfield has put there. Let us help you craft a dispute strategy to challenge every item that can’t be fully verified.
You didn’t ask for these calls. You shouldn’t have to tolerate them. And you certainly don’t have to face a debt collector alone.
