The most-complained-about debt collectors in America, 2023–2026

Between August 2023 and August 2026, Americans filed 414,289 debt-collection complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about the 97 companies in this report. This is what that public record says: which companies, what people complain about, and why the name on the letter is so often not the name in the database.

A complaint is something a consumer reported. It is not a finding of wrongdoing, and complaint counts rise with company size. Read this as a map of where people are running into trouble, not a verdict. How we build these pages · Download the data (CSV) · Source: consumerfinance.gov

Four companies, a third of all complaints

The four companies with the most complaints account for 139,559 complaints — 34% of the total. The top ten account for 50%. All four collect purchased debt rather than debt they originated: charged-off accounts, bought or serviced for the buyer, often for cents on the dollar.

The #1 complaint: money people say they don’t owe

For 82 of the 97 companies, the single most common complaint category is “attempts to collect debt not owed.” For 15 more it is “took or threatened to take negative or legal action.” Nothing else is the top category for any company. The most frequent thing people report about a debt collector is being pursued for money they say is not theirs.

Most people can’t say what the debt is for

The CFPB form asks what kind of debt is being collected. For 78 of 97 companies, the most common answer is “I do not know.” People are being collected on and cannot identify the underlying debt. Federal law gives you the right to make the collector identify it: a debt validation letter requires them to state who the original creditor was and how much is owed before they may continue.

The name on the letter is usually not the company

55 of 97 companies collect under names other than the one in the CFPB database. Midland Credit Management is Encore Capital Group. LVNV Funding is Resurgent Capital Services. Jefferson Capital Systems is CL Holdings. A person who searches the name on their letter often cannot find the company’s public record. Where a company collects under another name, its page in our directory carries both.

The medical-debt collectors

Medical debt is among the top three debt types for 13 companies. These are the companies whose complaints most often involve medical debt:

• W&A Intermediate Co., LLC — 2,589 complaints; medical debt is the #1 debt type
• Collection Management Holdings, LLC — 2,191 complaints; medical debt is the #2 debt type
• NRA Group, LLC — 2,162 complaints; medical debt is the #2 debt type
• Central Portfolio Control Inc. — 2,154 complaints; medical debt is the #2 debt type
• Ability Recovery Services, LLC — 2,000 complaints; medical debt is the #2 debt type
• Lockhart, Morris & Montgomery Inc. — 1,648 complaints; medical debt is the #2 debt type
• Capio Partners, LLC — 1,577 complaints; medical debt is the #2 debt type
• TekCollect Inc. — 1,414 complaints; medical debt is the #3 debt type
• Aargon Agency, Inc. — 1,396 complaints; medical debt is the #3 debt type
• Bull City Financial Solutions, Inc — 1,334 complaints; medical debt is the #3 debt type
• Credit Systems International, Inc. — 1,259 complaints; medical debt is the #3 debt type
• Consumer Adjustment Company Incorporated — 1,066 complaints; medical debt is the #3 debt type
• Penn Credit Corporation — 920 complaints; medical debt is the #3 debt type

Where the complaints come from

Counting how often each state appears among a company’s three highest-complaint states: TX (92 of 97 companies), FL (87 of 97 companies), GA (53 of 97 companies) and CA (35 of 97 companies). This tracks population more than anything else; it is not evidence that collectors target these states. Our state-by-state guide covers the laws that differ.

Methodology

Source: the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, product “debt collection,” complaints received August 2023–August 2026, retrieved August 26, 2026. The 97 companies are those with the most debt-collection complaints in that window, with the three national credit bureaus removed because they receive debt-collection complaints but are not collectors; the smallest company here has 865. This is not every company in the database. Companies are as named in the database; “also known as” names are added from public corporate records. Debt types, issues and states are the most frequent values in each company’s complaints, in order. Counts are not normalised by account volume, because the CFPB does not publish it — a company with more accounts will have more complaints. “I do not know” is a literal option on the CFPB form and is reported as such. The full 97-row table is available as CSV. Cite as: BillFighter, “The Most-Complained-About Debt Collectors in America, 2023–2026,” 2026-09-02, https://billfighter.com/reports/debt-collector-complaints-2026.

Every company in this report has a page in the directory explaining who they are, your rights under the FDCPA, and a free letter that makes them prove the debt.