Contract Callers Inc on Your Credit Report? Fight Back and Win

Contract Callers Inc., also known as CCI, is listed on your credit report or calling you. You’re concerned because it’s affecting your ability to move forward financially and open new accounts, but you aren’t even sure what this company is. If this sounds like your situation, you aren’t alone. With the right steps and potentially working with a consumer protection attorney, you can remove Contract Callers Inc. from your credit report and stop their calls.

What Is Contract Callers Inc.?

Contract Callers Inc., or CCI, is a third-party debt collection agency, not an original creditor. An original creditor would be a company that provided you with a service or with whom you opened an account. Original creditors might try to collect past-due balances on their own at first, and eventually, they could hire a third-party agency like CCI to do it for them and pay them a contingency fee, or they could sell the debt.

Contract Callers Inc. can report to credit bureaus, which include Experian, Equifax, and Transunion.

Who Does Contract Callers Inc. Collect For?

CCI collects for businesses in different industries, including financial services, healthcare, and government services. CCI also collects for energy and utilities services providers, telecommunications, and retail businesses.

Why Is CCI Calling Me?

If someone is calling and they say they’re from Contract Callers Inc. or CCI, they are trying to collect a debt from you. Just because a debt collector calls you doesn’t mean that you automatically owe money, however. There are frequent mistakes made in debt collection, and you also have federally-protected rights.

Is Contract Callers Inc. Legitimate?

Contract Callers is legitimate, and they aren’t a scam, but over the past three years, there have been more than 100 consumer complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau. The company also isn’t accredited by the Better Business Bureau.

Some of the complaints people have about Contract Callers Inc. include that they don’t believe they’re liable for the debt the company is contacting them about or has reported on their credit. There are quite a few customer reviews that indicate people are entirely unfamiliar with the original debt this company is calling them about, and yet despite telling CCI this information, they continue their calls. 

There are also some people who say they settled with either the original creditor or with Contract Callers Inc., and even so, they haven’t seen the information updated on their credit reports, nor have they received settlement information.

For anyone dealing with a debt collector, it’s best to avoid trying to handle the situation on your own. It can make things worse. For example, if you talk to someone from Contract Callers Inc., it can mean you acknowledge the debt they’re calling about, restarting the statute of limitations clock. Before doing anything else, it's best to talk to a consumer protection attorney.

Your Rights When Dealing with CCI

If you get a letter, phone calls, or your first introduction to Contract Callers Inc. on your credit report, you have extensive rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The FCRA is an important federal law relating to your credit file and its information. Your credit reports with the three bureaus and your credit scores are important for so much of your life.

Your credit reports and scores with the bureaus are used to determine if you can open new accounts. This includes not just credit card accounts but also bank accounts and even new utility accounts. Your credit score is relevant when trying to buy a home or rent one. 

Some employers will check prospective employees’ credit reports before extending a job offer to them.

These are just a few of the reasons why accuracy, fairness, and transparency are so important with your credit information, which is what the FCRA seeks to protect for every person in the U.S.

The FCRA limits who can access your credit information and for what purposes. If a lender or anyone takes adverse action against you because of something they see on your credit report, you have a right to know why. You also have an entitlement to receive a free credit report from each of the three major bureaus on a yearly basis.

Something else the FCRA outlines is the right to dispute information on your credit report that’s inaccurate. There are a lot of reasons for wrong information on credit reports. For example, someone else could have a similar name to yours, and their collections could hit your account with Contract Callers Inc. on your credit report.

A person with a similar Social Security number to yours could have credit information that’s mixed up, or the original creditor you did business with might have sent the wrong balance or payment information to Contract Callers Inc.

Debt collectors also use practices like skip tracing, which can help them “fill in the blanks” on consumer debt information, but there’s a lot of room for error here.

Whether you think that some or all of a debt that Contract Callers Inc. claims you owe is wrong, you should exercise your right to dispute it using a consumer protection attorney. Once a dispute is submitted on your behalf, the collection agency has a 30-day period within which to investigate it and, if necessary, remove or update information.

It’s hard to get the attention of a debt collection agency to be compliant with the FCRA without legal representation.

Consumers are also protected by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This law centers on how debt collectors can and can’t behave. A debt collector can’t misrepresent who they are or what you owe in an attempt to get you to pay. Harassment and threats are noncompliance with the FDCPA, as is calling repeatedly or early in the mornings or after 9 p.m.

Get CCI Off Your Credit Report with Fair Credit

At Fair Credit, we’re FCRA attorneys who help consumers most effectively deal with debt collection agencies, so their credit is no longer affected, nor is their peace of mind. Contact us today to learn more and get a free case review.