Who Is Franklin Collection Services, and Why Are They Calling You?

Yes, Franklin Collection Services is a legitimate debt collection agency. They are based in Tupelo, Mississippi, now operate as Franklin Service, Inc., and if they are calling or writing to you, a creditor such as a hospital, utility, lender or retailer has placed an account in your name with them to collect.

Legitimate does not mean the account is right. Consumers who complain about Franklin to federal regulators most often say the debt is not theirs at all, and Franklin has closed every one of their 634 debt collection complaints since 2021 without relief. This guide covers who they are, which phone numbers are really theirs, what the federal complaint record shows, and the rights the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act gives you before you pay anything.

Who is Franklin Collection Services?

Franklin is a family-run collection agency in northern Mississippi. Their website describes them as collecting in all 50 states from a 22,000 square foot office in Tupelo, and quotes their CEO, Dan Franklin, saying they are paid on a contingency basis. That matters for you: a collector paid on contingency earns a share of what they recover, which is exactly the kind of third-party collector the FDCPA was written to cover.

The name causes confusion. The company appears as Franklin Collection Service, Inc. in court records and in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s complaint database, as Franklin Collection Services in most search results, and as Franklin Service, Inc., often shortened to FSI, on their own website and BBB profile. They are the same company at the same Tupelo address. An earlier version of this page placed their headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. Franklin’s own contact page and the BBB both list Tupelo.

Sources: Franklin Service contact page, Franklin Service company profile, Franklin Service about page and the BBB business profile for Franklin Service, Inc., all retrieved 29 September 2026.

Phone numbers you can verify

These are the numbers Franklin publishes themselves, or that the BBB lists for them. If you want to confirm that a call really came from Franklin, hang up and call one of these back.

Sources: Franklin Service contact page and the BBB business profile, retrieved 29 September 2026.

Is 800-754-1975 Franklin Collection Services?

Probably, but we could not confirm it. 800-754-1975 is the number people most often search for alongside Franklin’s name, and several phone-lookup sites attribute it to them. It does not appear anywhere on Franklin’s own website or on their BBB profile, which is where a collector’s real numbers should be listed. Collectors also use outbound numbers they never publish, so an unlisted number is not proof of a scam. It is a reason to check before you pay.

The safest approach with any number, including this one: do not confirm your date of birth, Social Security number or bank details on an incoming call. Ask for the caller’s name, the creditor and the account number, hang up, and call Franklin back on 662-844-7776 or 800-262-7590.

The earlier version of this page listed 24 numbers that consumers had reported receiving Franklin calls from. We have kept them, grouped by area code and clearly marked as unverified, because people search for them. 8 of them are in area code 662, which covers Tupelo and matches Franklin’s main line, and 5 run through a single 662-690 exchange (662-690-2270, 662-690-2281, 662-690-2283, 662-690-2284, 662-690-2285), which looks like a bank of lines belonging to one business. That is consistent with Franklin, but we could not confirm it, and neither list includes 662-844-7776.

If a number is not on either list, our Franklin Collection Services directory page tracks further numbers people have reported. For a caller you cannot identify at all, see our guide to why debt collectors call.

Why is Franklin contacting you?

Because a creditor has placed an account in your name with them. Franklin does not publish a client list, but their website describes the work: mail and phone collection, skip tracing, credit reporting to the major bureaus, and lawsuits. Much of the site is aimed at hospitals and clinics, and the CFPB record shows a broad mix of debts.

Debt collection complaints against Franklin Collection Service, Inc. received 1 January 2021 to 29 September 2026, by the sub-product the consumer selected. Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, retrieved 29 September 2026.

Almost a third of consumers who complained could not say what the debt was for. That is the first thing to fix: under the FDCPA, Franklin’s validation notice must name the creditor you owe and show how the balance was reached, and you are entitled to ask.

Where complaints come from shows where their clients are. Of the 634 debt collection complaints since 2021, 126 came from Alabama, 79 from Texas and 78 from Mississippi. Alabama accounts for 19.9% of Franklin’s complaints against 2.1% of debt collection complaints nationally, and Mississippi for 12.3% against 1.3%, so those two states together file about a third of all complaints about Franklin. Texas, at 12.5%, is below its 16.5% national share. If you live or received services in Alabama or Mississippi, that is most likely where your account began.

What the federal complaint record says

The CFPB Consumer Complaint Database is the most useful public record on any collection agency, because companies must respond and every response is published. Franklin Collection Service, Inc. has 1,726 complaints on file, the first received in 2013. Since 1 January 2021 there are 773, of which 634 concern debt collection and most of the rest concern credit reporting.

Complaints climbed for eight years to a peak of 281 in 2021, fell to 45 in 2024, and have risen since. With three months left, 2026 has already passed 2025. Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, company “Franklin Collection Service, Inc.”, retrieved 29 September 2026.

What people complain about

Measured against every debt collection complaint filed nationally over the same period, Franklin’s record has a clear shape. People are less likely to say Franklin threatened them, and more likely to say the debt belongs to someone else, was already paid, or was never properly explained.

Share of debt collection complaints by category. Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, complaints received 1 January 2021 to 29 September 2026, retrieved 29 September 2026. The national baseline is all 872,392 debt collection complaints received in the same period.

• The debt is not mine: 213 of 634 complaints, 33.6%, against 26.5% nationally. This is the largest single complaint about Franklin.
• Identity theft: 101 complaints, 15.9%, say the debt was the result of identity theft, against 13.9%.
• Already paid: 48 complaints, 7.6%, against 4.4%, which is 1.7 times the national rate.
• The letter: 84 consumers, 13.2%, say they were not given enough information to verify the debt, against 10.1%, and 42, 6.6%, say they never received notice of their right to dispute, against 4.5%.

Taken together, 366 of Franklin’s 634 debt collection complaints, 57.7%, fall under the CFPB heading “attempts to collect debt not owed”, against 45.8% nationally. Two categories run the other way: threats to damage your credit (7.4% against 12.4%) and collecting the wrong amount (5.8% against 10.0%). Complaints are what consumers report, not findings of wrongdoing, but the pattern tells you where to look first: whose account this is, and whether it was already paid.

How complaints end

Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, product Debt collection, complaints received 1 January 2021 to 29 September 2026, retrieved 29 September 2026.

Franklin answers complaints, and nearly always on time. What they almost never do is resolve one in the consumer’s favor. Across all 1,726 complaints on file since 2013, two closed with monetary relief and none with non-monetary relief. Nationally, about one debt collection complaint in four and a half ends with the collector correcting the account, stopping collection or paying money back. A regulator complaint is still worth filing, because it creates a record, but on this history it is unlikely to fix your account by itself.

Why an A+ rating and this complaint record can both be true

The BBB grade and the CFPB record measure different things. The BBB rating weighs how a business responds to complaints filed with the BBB, their time in business and their licensing; Franklin has been accredited since 2004 and has 31 BBB complaints in the last three years. The CFPB record counts complaints filed with a federal regulator and publishes how each one ended. Consumer reviews point in a third direction: Google search results on 29 September 2026 showed Franklin rated 1.9 out of 5 across 256 Google reviews. None of these tells you whether your account is right. Only the paperwork does.

Franklin goes to court: never ignore a lawsuit

Franklin’s services page says plainly that they “go to court” for their clients, and Mississippi’s highest court has described what that looks like. In Franklin Collection Service, Inc. v. Stewart, decided by the Supreme Court of Mississippi on 31 December 2003, Franklin had filed nine lawsuits in the Noxubee County Justice Court between 1996 and 2000 over unpaid medical bills, each adding a claim for attorney’s fees. None of the people sued answered, and Franklin won a default judgment against every one of them.

The consumers later sued Franklin, arguing that the fee claims were improper. The Supreme Court ruled for Franklin: because they had not defended the original cases or appealed, most of those arguments were barred, and the court rejected the rest. The lesson is not about Franklin in particular. It is that a default judgment is very hard to undo, and defenses you do not raise when you are sued can be lost for good.

If you are served with a lawsuit by Franklin or any collector, respond by the deadline on the papers, even if you believe you do not owe the debt, and talk to a lawyer straight away. Check whether the debt is too old to sue on in your state using our guide to the statute of limitations on debt by state. Suing or threatening to sue on a debt that is past the limitations period can itself violate the FDCPA.

What Franklin’s letter has to tell you

Within five days of first contacting you, Franklin must send a validation notice, and since November 2021 the CFPB’s Regulation F spells out what goes in it. Read theirs against this list.

Sources: 15 U.S.C. § 1692g, 12 C.F.R. § 1006.34 and 15 U.S.C. § 1692e, Legal Information Institute, retrieved 29 September 2026.

What Franklin is not allowed to do

The FDCPA sets firm limits on how Franklin can collect. These are the rules most often at stake.

Sources: statutory and regulatory text from the Legal Information Institute, 15 U.S.C. chapter 41, subchapter V and 12 C.F.R. § 1006.14, retrieved 29 September 2026.

Calls to your cell phone raise a separate question. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3), an unlawful autodialed or prerecorded call can bring $500 in damages, and up to $1,500 if the violation was willful. Whether a particular call breaks the TCPA depends on how it was placed and what consent you gave, so save the voicemails. Our page on how to stop robocalls explains how those cases work.

Franklin and your credit report

Franklin reports to the credit bureaus, and 137 of their 773 complaints since 2021 concern credit reporting rather than collection. If they have contacted you, pull your reports. Four rules decide what should be there.

• A collector must reach you before reporting. Under 12 C.F.R. § 1006.30(a), a debt collector may not report a debt to a credit bureau until they have spoken to you about it, or sent you a notice and waited a reasonable time to learn whether it was undeliverable.
• The seven-year clock does not restart. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c, a collection account can stay on your report for seven years, counted from 180 days after the original delinquency. Placing the account with Franklin, or reselling it, does not reset that clock.
• A dispute through the bureau triggers an investigation. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b), once a bureau forwards your dispute, Franklin must investigate and correct or delete anything inaccurate or unverifiable.
• Medical collections follow the bureaus’ own policies. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion do not report paid medical collections or medical collections with an initial balance under $500, and wait a year before a medical collection can appear. Those are voluntary bureau policies; the CFPB rule that would have gone further was vacated by a federal court on 11 July 2025.

Get your reports free from all three bureaus through our free credit report guide. If you find a Franklin account that is paid, not yours or wrongly dated, see how to dispute your credit report. If the account came from someone using your name, our identity theft page covers the extra steps; that is the claim in one Franklin complaint in six.

What to do if Franklin contacts you

The same steps work whether the contact is a call, a letter or a text, and most of them are time-limited.

1. Do not pay or confirm anything on the first call. Ask for the creditor’s name, the account number and the amount, then end the call politely. If the number is not one of Franklin’s verified lines, call them back on 662-844-7776 or 800-262-7590.
2. Read the validation notice against the checklist above. If it does not name the creditor, give an itemization date or show how the balance was reached, note exactly what is missing.
3. Check with the original creditor. Ask whether the account is yours, whether it was paid, and whether an insurance claim or credit is still pending.
4. Dispute in writing within 30 days. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g, you have 30 days from receiving the validation notice to dispute in writing, and Franklin must then stop collecting until they mail you verification. Send it to 2978 West Jackson Street, P.O. Box 3910, Tupelo, MS 38801, or to the address on their notice, and keep proof of mailing. Franklin also accepts disputes at Disputes@franklinservice.com; if you email, keep a copy.
5. Send a written stop-contact letter if you want the calls to end. Section 1692c(c) requires them to stop once you ask in writing. The trade-off: this ends the calls but does not cancel the debt, and a collector can still sue, so dispute first if you think the account is wrong.
6. Write down every contact. Date, time, the number that appeared, what was said and who else heard it. Call logs, screenshots and saved voicemails are how repeated calls and third-party contact are proved.
7. If you are sued, answer. Respond by the deadline on the court papers and get legal advice straight away.

For more on your options when several collectors are chasing you at once, see our debt help page and our guide to how to stop debt collection harassment.

What it costs to work with us

Nothing, and that is how the statute is built. The FDCPA is a fee-shifting statute: 15 U.S.C. § 1692k lets a consumer who wins recover actual damages, additional statutory damages of up to $1,000, and the costs of the action together with a reasonable attorney’s fee. That means the collector pays our fees and costs, not you. Claims must generally be brought within one year of the violation, so do not wait long.

Your case evaluation is free, and you pay no fee unless you win. If Franklin has tried to collect a debt that is not yours, kept collecting after a written dispute, or called you too often, call America’s Consumer Lawyer at 888-572-0176 or read more about how we handle debt collection harassment.

Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Frequently asked questions

This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Company details, phone numbers and complaint figures were checked against the sources named above on 29 September 2026 and can change.