Thank you and a double-check

If you have sent out the DV letters to all three creditors, you should NOW dispute the three tradelines with all the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs). This gives you leverage to pursue violations (of the process for credit reporting). You also never know, they may drop off.

As a note, if you are intending a home purchase, you will be required to clean up these debts before any mortgage can be closed. Thankfully they are small amounts in your case, and should be easy to close out. You may even try "goodwill" attempts to request "Pay For Deletions" with these creditors. Usually utilities will do this for you. They are not as concerned with reporting as much as a credit card company would.

Good Luck

 

You have to send the PFDs to whomever is listed on your credit reports. Most likely you will have to try to get both off your reports. Usually utilities don't report directly, they let the CAs do that. Being such small amounts I don't think you'll have too much trouble getting them off. If there were any extenuating circumstances (such as you moved and bills never forwarded, etc.) I would stress those points in your dealings with both the CAs and utilities.

 

Utilities, at least gas and electric will often let you pay them directly if you do it right and then you can beat the collection agencies into submission fairly easily.

If you have moved a long distance from the city where they are located it will be much more difficult because you have to almost be in their offices to make it work. You need a new address in that city so you drive around and find an older vacant house with a FOR RENT sign on it in a poor neighborhood. The more dilapidated it looks the better because it is likely to have a high turnover of renters.

Then go to their pay windows and tell them you need to pay them off because you are needing new service at that dilapidated old rent house. They will say you have to pay their collection agency. The answer is that you are moving in now and must have the utilities on. Tell them the collection agency never called you and never sent no letters and you didn't know anything about the old bill you owed. Tell them that if they want to pay the collection agency that's their problem but you can't see why they would want to pay somebody that didn't do them any good.

The real leverage that makes this work is that they can't deny you essential services if you are willing to pay them what you owe. Of course they are going to want a pretty big deposit on top of what you owe but when it comes down to paying that you say that you have signed a lease on the property but the landlord is doing some repairs which will take a couple more days and you will pay the deposit when you actually order the service to be turned on.

Once you have paid the utility company then you can fight the collection agency off very easily. Simply tell them you don't owe the bill but don't offer to prove it. Tell them that if they want the money they are going to have to sue you for it. Tell them they had best get their false report off your credit because if they don't you will sue them.

Then you can use the receipt you got from the utility company to prove to the CRA that you don't owe that bill the collection agency claims you owe.
If was all a mistake on the part of the utility company. In most cities they don't report themselves. They let their collection agencies do that.

It might work even if you don't go to their offices in person too. All you can do is try. You can say you are moving back to town next week and you don't want any problems with getting utilities turned on. Of course you will have to do it by phone. You can always get a newspaper from that city and look in the houses for rent section to get the address of a vacant house.