Are you receiving Harassing Collection Calls from Abercrombie & Fitch?

Your phone rings again. The caller ID shows a number you barely recognize. You pick up and hear a prerecorded voice, or a representative demanding payment on a store card balance. Maybe you have already told them to stop. Maybe the calls keep arriving at hours that feel wrong. If collection contact connected to an Abercrombie & Fitch credit card is disrupting your daily life, you need to understand something before you say a word to the next caller: the bank behind that card, and any third-party collector pursuing the balance, must comply with federal law on every single call they make to you. When they do not, you may be owed money.

Consumer Rights Law Firm PLLC has protected consumers from creditor and collector harassment since 2010. A+ BBB rated. Call (877) 700-5790 or visit our website for a free case review. You never pay us out of pocket. If Comenity Bank or a third-party collector violated the law pursuing your Abercrombie & Fitch balance, they pay our fees.

What You Need to Know Before You Answer Another Call?

The calls you are receiving about an Abercrombie & Fitch account are not coming from the clothing retailer. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is a specialty retail brand. It does not issue credit. Every credit account opened under the Abercrombie & Fitch name was issued and managed by Comenity Capital Bank, a subsidiary of Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BFH). That bank is the entity calling you, or it is the entity that assigned your delinquent balance to a third-party collection agency.

This separation matters for one critical legal reason: the rights and remedies available to you depend on who is calling. Comenity Capital Bank as an original creditor is not typically covered by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). However, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) applies to every caller in the country without exception, including original creditors. If a third-party collector has taken over the account, then the FDCPA’s full set of protections also applies.

Knowing this is the first step toward stopping the harassment and, in many cases, recovering damages for violations that may already have occurred.

Quick Facts: Abercrombie & Fitch and Comenity Capital Bank

Is the Abercrombie & Fitch Credit Card Even Still Active?

No. The Abercrombie & Fitch credit card program through Comenity Capital Bank was officially discontinued on May 1, 2020. Comenity sent written notice to existing cardholders stating the program would end and that cardholders would receive additional information about what the closure meant for their accounts.

The discontinuation of the card program did not eliminate outstanding balances. Consumers who carried unpaid or partially paid balances at the time of closure remained obligated to Comenity Capital Bank for those amounts. In the years since the program closed, those balances have continued to accrue interest and have been pursued through Comenity’s internal collections department and, in many cases, transferred to third-party debt collectors or sold to debt buyers.

This means you could be receiving calls in 2025 or 2026 about a credit card program that stopped accepting new applications more than five years ago. The account is real, but the contact surrounding it may not be legal. Statute of limitations issues, stale documentation, and inflated balances from years of accrued interest are all legitimate concerns to investigate before responding to any demand.

In our practice, we frequently encounter consumers dealing with Abercrombie and Fitch card balances from accounts that have been passed through multiple hands since the program closed. By the time a third-party collector makes contact, the documentation trail from Comenity Capital Bank through the original charge-off and into the collector’s hands may be incomplete. That chain of ownership matters. A collector without proper documentation of their right to collect may not have legal standing to pursue you.

How Does Federal Law Govern These Calls?

• The Telephone Consumer Protection Act covers every call to your cell phone. The TCPA’s prohibition on automated or prerecorded calls applies universally. Comenity Capital Bank, any servicer acting on its behalf, and any third-party collector pursuing the balance all must comply. If any of those parties used an autodialer or a prerecorded message to contact your cell phone without your prior written consent, each such call is a standalone TCPA violation carrying $500 in statutory damages, rising to $1,500 per call if the court finds the violation was willful.
• Prior consent given on your original credit card application can be revoked at any time, verbally or in writing. Once you clearly communicate your revocation, continued automated calls are additional violations. In Schweitzer v. Comenity Bank, 866 F.3d 1273 (11th Cir. 2017), the federal appeals court confirmed that a verbal statement restricting or revoking consent during a live call — even conversational language, not legal phrasing — carries legal weight under the TCPA.
• The FDCPA governs every third-party collector that pursues this balance. If your account has been placed with or sold to a collection agency, that agency must comply with the FDCPA in every contact it makes. This means no calls before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. in your local time zone (§805(a)(1)), no more than seven calls per week on the same debt under Regulation F (12 C.F.R. §1006.14), no calls to your workplace once you notify them your employer prohibits such contact (§805(a)(3)), written debt validation within five days of first contact (§809(a)), and cessation of all collection upon a timely written dispute until verification is provided (§809(b)). Violations carry up to $1,000 per case in statutory damages, plus actual damages and attorney fees paid by the collector.
• The Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act protects California consumers. California extends FDCPA-equivalent obligations to original creditors through the Rosenthal Act, meaning Comenity Capital Bank’s own collection conduct must comply with those protections in California. Violations carry additional per-violation damages of up to $1,000.

One thing consumers frequently misunderstand about Comenity Capital Bank’s calls is that both the TCPA and state equivalents can apply simultaneously with third-party FDCPA obligations. When a consumer has been autodialed without consent and the balance has also been improperly pursued by a collector, these are independent legal claims. Resolving one does not eliminate the other.

Who Is Abercrombie & Fitch and Why Does It Matter?

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is a publicly traded American lifestyle apparel brand (NYSE: ANF) with roots going back to 1892, when David T. Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch opened a sporting goods store in Manhattan. Over more than a century, it evolved from an outdoor outfitter into one of the most recognizable youth-oriented clothing retailers in the United States.

Today, A&F operates as a global, digitally-led, omnichannel retailer with more than 780 stores across its brand family. Its subsidiary brands include Hollister Co., Abercrombie Kids, Gilly Hicks, and Your Personal Best. Corporate headquarters sits at 6301 Fitch Path in New Albany, Ohio, outside Columbus.

Understanding the distinction between the retail company and the bank behind the credit card is what makes this article different from a company overview. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. does not issue credit, does not collect debt, and is not the entity calling you. The Abercrombie & Fitch Credit Card was issued by Comenity Capital Bank, a state-chartered commercial bank subsidiary of Bread Financial. When collection calls happen, they come from that banking relationship, not from the clothing brand.

The BBB’s own profile for Abercrombie & Fitch explicitly states that credit and billing account matters for the company are processed by Comenity Bank and directs consumers to a separate Comenity Bank business review for those issues.

The TCPA Class Action: Abercrombie’s Own Documented Record

Beyond Comenity Bank’s documented litigation history, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. itself has been a named defendant in a major TCPA class action that ended in a significant federal settlement.

Chimeno-Buzzi, et al. v. Hollister Co. and Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

Plaintiff Anamaria Chimeno-Buzzi filed a class action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, in August 2014. She alleged that Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister violated the TCPA by sending unsolicited promotional text messages to consumers’ cell phones without prior express written consent. She claimed to have received 18 such texts over approximately two months from Abercrombie and Hollister. A second lead plaintiff, Lakedrick Reed, alleged receipt of multiple texts between April and June of 2014. Neither plaintiff alleged giving consent, and neither claimed the messages provided any mechanism to opt out of future texts.

The case grew to represent more than 3.7 million class members across the United States who received text messages from Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister Co., Abercrombie Kids, or Gilly Hicks between August 25, 2010 and December 18, 2015. Abercrombie and Hollister denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle the litigation for $10 million. Judge Marcia G. Cooke of the Southern District of Florida presided. Final approval was granted, and class members who filed claims by May 16, 2016 received settlement payments.

View settlement information at Top Class Actions

What this means for you: Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister settled a $10 million class action covering over 3.7 million consumers for sending texts without consent. That settlement is closed. But the underlying legal principle remains entirely current: sending automated texts or calls to your phone without prior express written consent violates the TCPA, and each violation carries per-message statutory damages. If you received collection-related texts from numbers connected to the Abercrombie & Fitch account program after that program ended and without giving consent for such contact, those texts may be separately actionable.

Comenity Capital Bank: A Complaint Record That Spans Years

Comenity Capital Bank is part of Bread Financial Holdings, the parent company also responsible for Comenity Bank. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network, which aggregates complaints submitted to the FTC, the CFPB, and thousands of partner organizations, showed Comenity Bank appearing in the top 50 most-complained-about companies in every tracked month throughout 2023 and 2024 with complaint totals verified from official FTC monthly reports at the following levels:

March 2023: 635 complaints. June 2023: 496 complaints. November 2023: verifiable from the FTC monthly data. February 2024: 576 complaints. April 2024: 253 complaints. September 2024: 597 complaints. October 2024: 627 complaints. November 2024: 495 complaints.

These figures are drawn directly from the FTC’s official published Consumer Sentinel Network top-company complaint reports. Consumers can file their own complaints with the FTC and with the CFPB.

Separately, Comenity Bank has faced repeated federal TCPA litigation. Couser v. Comenity Bank resulted in an $8.5 million settlement covering more than 4 million consumers who received automated calls. Schweitzer v. Comenity Bank produced a binding Eleventh Circuit ruling confirming that consumers may verbally revoke consent to automated calls. Dmytriw v. Comenity Bank alleged more than 379 calls in two months following a stop request. The full pattern of Comenity’s litigation history is detailed at comenity bank phone harassment.

Your Full Legal Rights on Every Call

• TCPA (all callers including Comenity): No automated or prerecorded calls to your cell phone without prior written consent. $500 per violation, $1,500 for willful violations. Consent revocable at any time.
• FDCPA (third-party collectors only): Covers call frequency cap, time-of-day restrictions, debt validation rights, cease-and-desist rights, and the prohibition on false, threatening, or deceptive collection conduct. Up to $1,000 per case, plus actual damages and fees paid by the collector.
• FCRA (credit reporting issues): If collection activity related to the Abercrombie & Fitch account results in inaccurate information appearing on your credit report, you have the right to dispute that information. Furnishers must investigate within 30 days.
• California Rosenthal Act: Extends FDCPA-equivalent obligations to Comenity Capital Bank directly, meaning its own calls and written communications must comply. Additional damages of up to $1,000 per violation.

Abercrombie Credit Card FDCPA and TCPA Violation Table

What To Do Next: 5 Immediate Steps

• Step 1: Build a detailed call log starting right now. Open a notes app and begin recording: the date, exact time, the number that appeared on your screen, whether the call used a live person or a recording, the name of any representative, and precisely what was said. Forward voicemails to your own email. Screenshot them. The volume, timing, and content of calls are the foundation of any legal claim under both the TCPA and the FDCPA. If you have already been receiving calls for days or weeks, reconstruct the history from your phone’s recent call log while it remains accessible.
• Step 2: Verify who is actually calling before saying anything about the debt. If a live person answers, ask them to state in full: the legal name of their company, the name of the original creditor, and the current balance with a full itemized breakdown. Hang up if they refuse, then request all of that in writing. Never confirm, dispute, or acknowledge a balance on an unverified incoming call. Acknowledging a debt verbally — even saying “I know, I just can’t pay right now” — can affect your legal position and in some states can restart the statute of limitations clock.
• Step 3: Send a debt validation letter by certified mail to the entity calling you. You have 30 days from first contact with a third-party collector to demand written validation. This must include: the name of the original creditor, the amount at charge-off, an itemized balance breakdown showing principal, interest, and fees, the date of original delinquency, and the chain of ownership from Comenity Capital Bank to the current collector. All collection activity must stop until verification is provided. Send certified mail only, and keep the green return receipt card.
• Step 4: Send a cease-and-desist letter if calls are excessive, threatening, or continue after prior requests. Under FDCPA §805(c), a written cease-and-desist sent to a third-party collector restricts them to a single confirmatory communication and bars all further collection contact. Separately, revoking TCPA consent for automated calls should be stated clearly and specifically in the same letter if automated calls are part of the conduct. Send both by certified mail to the collector’s confirmed mailing address. Retain your tracking confirmation.
• Step 5: File regulatory complaints and schedule a free case review. Report the conduct to the FTC. File a CFPB complaint. File robocall complaints with the FCC. Or call Consumer Rights Law Firm PLLC at (877) 700-5790 or visit our website for a free case review. When federal law is broken, the collector pays our fees. You owe nothing.

Consumer Rights Law Firm PLLC

Consumer Rights Law Firm PLLC dedicates its practice to protecting consumers from harassment by creditors and debt collectors, including banks like Comenity Capital Bank and any third-party collectors pursuing Abercrombie & Fitch card balances. Since 2010, we have held an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. We accept consumer protection cases on contingency. You pay nothing in advance. When the law is violated, the other side covers our fees.

Reach us at (877) 700-5790 or visit our website.

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