You are right about people running up credit cards then not paying their bill. But you left out the 1000's of government employees, CEO's who got away with millions and are still in business. Why are not these people locked up? Because people like you protect them, you think its fine if someone scams the public if they are rich enough to hire lawyers to get out of any jail  sentence. This is the same as what people are posting here.
If a person has lost their job after 35 years of loyalty and their top exectutives get away with millions THEY should be locked up. Not the person who lost their job (20% of every household in the entire continent has lost their job) and is now struggling to pay their bills. This is not the scammers or banksters who got stole money from you and me and every 'responsible' US citizen.
Before you doll out the condemnation of  working class, earning less than poverty level, taking on a 2nd job, homeless familes with children who were once middle class, or those who lost their job, sickness or whatever reason caused them to fall behind in payments, you should look at your own list of sins. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Bi***

they call at all times of day and evening, I never answer 888 or 886 numbers anymore

From the FTC's lawsuit compalint:

"According to an FTC complaint, in many instances, collectors for LTD Financial Services, L.P., which collects on about 1.25 million consumer accounts per year, violated the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by falsely threatening or implying that LTD would garnish consumers? wages, seize or attach their property, or initiate lawsuits or criminal actions against them if they failed to pay."

"LTD collectors, who collect in English and Spanish, allegedly called consumers at their place of work despite knowing it was inconvenient for them to receive calls there, and disclosed the existence of debts to family members, employers, co-workers, and neighbors. They also allegedly harassed consumers and used abusive tactics such as immediately calling back after consumers hung up on them, and sometimes used racial slurs and profanity. According to the complaint, in some instances, front-line supervisors and mid-level managers either participated or were aware of such practices under their supervision but failed to impose sufficient discipline."

"The complaint also alleges that LTD?s internal compliance program regularly catches collectors violating federal law, but even multiple egregious violations often go without serious punishment, and that senior managers either turn a blind eye to the unlawful acts or fail to exercise the supervision necessary to recognize the problems."

"Under the proposed settlement, LTD will pay a $1.375 million civil penalty. In addition, LTD and its owners, Timothy Feldman and Leonard Pruzansky, and its top managers, John Brewster and Derrek Davis, are permanently prohibited from misrepresenting to consumers that nonpayment of a debt will result in garnishment of wages, seizure or attachment of property, or lawsuits. They also are permanently barred from using false, deceptive, or misleading representations in connection with the collection of any debt, communicating with a consumer at any unusual time or place, including their place of employment, or harassing, oppressing, or abusing any person."

"The settlement requires the defendants to clearly and conspicuously disclose to consumers that they may stop the company from contacting them about the debt, and to notify consumers that they may contact a special LTD physical address, e-mail address, or toll-free phone number if they have a complaint about the way the company is collecting the debt."

"Copies of the complaint and proposed consent decree are available from the FTC?s Web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC?s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, click http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.shtm or call 1-877-382-4357. "

It would be great to print this out, or obtain a copy, and then read it back to the debt collector when they call.

The FTC forced LTD Financial to pay 1.3 million dollars in 2007, charging that it "misled, threatened, and harassed consumers in violation of federal law." Here's the link to the aticle on the FTC website:
http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases ... tle-ftc-charges

This guy must be one of them doing all the annoying calling.

BLOCKED!!! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THESE PEOPLE!

This is a collection agency. I have defaulted on a lot of my s*** and I'm not paying, they can f*** themselves. What are they gonna do, take money I don't have because I spent it on weed and a playstation 3? Good luck c***s. I play the system like a fiddle, and it's easy as f***.

You obviously do not have family, friends, exes or a life--or for that matter a modicum of analytical thinking--or you would not be so presumptive as to make the statements you did and be as ignorantly biased and judgmental as you are.  We continually get calls for my ex-husband, who NEVER had our number and my present husband and I have been married over 17 years now. We get calls for an Antwon (whomever that is), for a Shirley (never even knew a Shirley)...and the list goes on.  Debt collectors, especially the unscrupulous ones (and you sound like you might just be one yourself), use things like Intelius to look up names from old debt lists they have bought for pennies on the dollar.  They find associated names or phone numbers.  They call those unsuspecting people hoping to get a line or their "target".  Unfortunately these are innocent people being harassed as are oftentimes the people supposedly even owing the debt.  Get your facts straight before you start casting stones.

LTD, you people regularly break the FDCA regulations.  If you call someone and they say they aren't who you happen to think they are, or you threaten legal action and don't follow through or any other infractions on the regs you break someone _will_ sooner or later, put your dumb a** out of business.  Pretty brave hiding behind a phone and talking big.  If you had any nads at all, you would slide on up to someones front door and run your nonsense on them.  But the odds are in your favor of collecting pennies on the dollar from people too intimidated to call your bluff.  You're a bunch of shysters.

This number is calling to my cell-phone every day for more than a month. I need to know how to stop this unwanted collectors since I put my number in the www.donotcall.com list and seems it is not working! is any way to sue these guys for harassment? Thanks

Thanks....good advice on the *77

I just received a call from 866 998 2500 and there was hesitation and then a female said she was sorry and had the wrong number.

This is a debt collection agency.  They use alot of threats to get you to pay a debt and they will also call family, friends and neighbors.  I sued them earlier this year and got a $1,000 settlement.  They are now calling me again.  I guess they didn't learn the first time.  Get in touch with Lemberg & Associates or www.stopcollector.com and they will get them to stop.

NOT ONLY DO THEY CALL....THEY ACTUALLY CAME TO MY HOUSE YESTERDAY....TAPED A NOTE ON IN THE INSIDE OF MY BACK DOOR SAYING DAWN CALLED LOOKING FOR ME!! IS IT ILLEGAL FOR THEM TO COME TO YOUR HOUSE?? THE NOTE WAS WRITTEN ON A PIECE OF NOTE PAPER TORN OUT OF A MEMO BOOK ABOUT 3x5...IT IS QUITE SCAREY THEY WERE ON MY PROPERTY (WELL...WHERE WE RENT!)...IS THERE ANY RECOURSE I CAN TAKE FROM THEM COMING ON PRIVAT PROPERTY?????

Keep getting a call then a text w/ out any message to follow!!!

They called my work today a new job which no one except my daughters shcool has the number for and asked for my husband how the heck? Said they were lkooking for him and meant to call his work number who is this?

Does anyone check this pages how do we find out who they are with out calling them back?

if you work for LTD you have got to be some kind of looser or just a annoying person with a small mind

They left a voice message and said themselves to be debt collection agency.

Called my number numerous times over the past week.  Couple days ago, called my home at 5:40am.  Told me that the Police were on the way to arrest me, unless I paid them and do I really want to have my children placed in Foster Care while I'm in Jail?  Funny thing about all this is the fact that the account they claim I owe, I've never stepped foot in that place (department store).  I've requested they provide to me in writing, their documentation on this account.  Also, my kids are grown and gone out of the house.  Since my state is a "single party state" in regards to recording telephone conversations, I'll be reporting them to my State's Attorney General for this and calling outside the hours allowed by law.  Will be interesting to see what happens.

Just got a call (I didn't answer) that showed up on caller ID as a local number!  When I listened to the message (prerecorded) it gave an 866 number and they are out of Texas.  How do they get a local number to show up?  Total SCAM!

LTD financial Services
Debt Collection

You're an idiot...there are a lot of good people out there who have every intention of paying their bills, and then, WHAM!!! They lose their jobs, etc...You sound pretty young and clueless, and take your job way too serious, little girl...legitimate collection companie do not harass people like that...in case you haven't notice we are suffering through the worst economy we've had in yrs...probably since before your smug a&% was born...hope you never find yourself in that position and if you ever do, I am quite certain that you will change your stance...we don't have enough jails to lock up people who are having troubles paying their bills today, moron!!!

Not only do they not ever leave a message, they do not get the message.  I do not deal with bottom feeders and these "people" are lower than whale sh**.

Since they do not take NO for an answer I no longer answer when they call as that is the only answer I have for them.

Debt collection. They called here looking for the person who used to live here and lost the house. I just got this number so they must subscribe to a phone listing service that posts new numbers or search by address and when the see either new or change they call.

LTD called looking  for Jeremy and my name starts with a J in telephone book .I hung up on her 3 times telling her she needed to stop calling people with names starting with J and she was collections or else..If they call me back anymore THEY will need to call the police ,I will have my computer call them  on there 1-866 number every 2 min's til they send me cash 100 dollars over night or the po-po shows up....So everyone just set your computers up to send them a fax and lets run up there phone bills  if they are calling the wrong numbers

have no idea why they are calling; for get over it ; they call asking for a certain person and you tell them they have the wrong # and they call you a liar saying i know this person lives here. callers did to stop harrasing; people give out wrong #'s just like they do wrong info

I got a call from 866-998-2500. EX 6272. A Jason left a message and said it was good news. When I called back, he asked me what number did he call me at. I said what number did you call me at. He said he was a debt collector and needed information to pull up my record. I said NO.  He was very nasty. He said he was from LTD.

These people have called three times in the last two days. They woke my a** up this morning at 8:30 a.m. to talk about something. Not sure how they got this cell number since I've only given it to a few select people. I imagine TracPhone gave it out. I didn't bother to answer since it would waste my minutes.

It's LTD Collection representing Zales among probably others. Their own letter states that under federal law you have the right not to allow them to contact you. If you do not want them contacting you they suggest you write a letter at:

Contact Center
7322 Southwest Freeway
Suite 1600
Houston, TX 77074

or email customercare@ltdfin.com

or call 1-866-310-9845 (9:00am-5:00pm CST)

Continuing calling and is now giving my home address and asking If I have gotten legal represtation to take care of this matter.. I have blocked the three numbers they have called from seeing if this works. Julie very obnoxious and condescending.