I recently discovered an old medical account on my credit file. I contacted the agency as this is my first time hearing about the debt. I informed them I was never contacted about this debt and they told me the reason I hadn't heard anything is because they had the wrong mailing information and no contact number. My question is, since I never had the opportunity to confirm or deny the debt, do they have to remove it? Yes, I'm responsible for it, but if I knew about it or if I received some type of notification I would have paid it. I feel like it's unfair that this is on my report and I never had the opportunity to pay before it was added. I offered to pay in full if this could be deleted and they agreed, but she would not send me anything in writing.
No they are not required to remove it. They are, however, required to send you a "1st notice" letter of the debt since you were not informed of your rights. Providing you gave them your current address so that could happen. If they agreed to PFD then make sure it is in writing or have a supervisor fax that to you.
Although it may be your account, is the amount actually owed? Did you have insurance coverage at the time? Were any claims properly submitted to your insurance? If the provider was in-network, were claims submitted timely, as defined by their contract with the insurance company? Was any balance due from the patient correctly calculated to include any insurance adjustments to the price, and any insurance payments?
Collectman, I have to disagree with "No they are not required to remove it." If the CA admits they did not send notification, then as you state, "required to send you a "1st notice" letter of the debt since you were not informed of your rights. " In short, this "restarts the entire process", and if a debtor pays a CA within 30 days of notification, I believe that a CA cannot report to CRAs, or at least most do not. But, I would make sure to get something in writing to the effect of removal of tradeline for full and timely payment. The CA should be able to provide this readily. For if they have admitted to not sending you (properly) the notification, then the reporting is in violation of the FDCPA.
It is correct, the OP states, "because they had the wrong mailing information and no contact number". That is not the CA's fault the debtor didn't provide an updated address/phone number with the OC or put in mail forwarding or attempt to contact the OC about the debt. They sent a 1st notice and it was either delivered or returned as undeliverable. Either way the CA has attempted to mail out a notice, probably within the 5 day period of communication, since reporting the TL is considered communication.
"That is not the CA's fault the debtor didn't provide an updated address/phone number with the OC or put in mail forwarding or attempt to contact the OC about the debt. " That is an assumption. Medical care often generates many bills by different parties (such as physician billing, specialists, ER physician, hospital pharmacy, hospital itself, outside lab) from information originally provided to, say, the hospital on admission. The more separate billing departments handle the information, the more errors are made. I have seen, for example, 4 different address errors in bills generated from providing one set of patient information to a hospital. Those are the ones I know about, because the post office was smart enough to still deliver them. I have also seen 3 bills from a hospital visit go correctly thru the insurance claim process, while one was held up due to a single digit insurance policy number error, and no-one bothered to contact me even though they had an accurate address. Similarly, I have seen a medical center, where separate systems apparently had patient information from separate visits, the information was linked, and then insurance claims were sent to the wrong company based on old insurance information from earlier visits. Some hospitals will provide you a list of providers who might be billing you, so you can follow up, but I have also seen a hospital where even their "payment councilor" or whatever they chose to call her, had no idea who might be billing, and had no way to find out. The patient billing information was apparently just handed out on request, with no apparent record of who asked for and received it, and therefore no way for a patient to actually track down bills that had not been received. The best run billing operation at a medical center I have seen still had entirely separate billing departments for hospital billing, vs. physician billing, but they did at least have a "patient advocate" office that had access to both billing computers so they could track down the full picture. The CA might not have made an error themselves, having received erroneous information from the medical provider, but if an error was made by the provider, you might use that to get removal of collection TLs by the CA. Proper billing, whether to your insurer, or to you, is part of the service you are paying for when you, or your doctor, chooses a medical provider. If a provider screws up, talk to your doctor that wrote the order to use them, or if you entered the medical system thru a hospital, talk to the hospital administration. You are their customer, and the CA is part of their accounts receivable process. Errors happen in medical billing frequently, they know that, and errors can be fixed.
Of course it's an assumption. The information given to us by the OC is assumed to be correct, including addresses/phone numbers. It's not until a letter is returned or the debtor makes contact after viewing their credit report and inform us of the outdated address. Sure, sometimes we find the new address before they tell us, but rarely is it ''confirmed'' until the debtor says it is, or they have applied for credit with the same address.
The point is simply that if you, as a consumer with money to spend, accept that businesses have a right to screw you, then that is what will happen. Debt collectors do assume what they receive is correct. Until finding out otherwise, what else would they do. However, other than people that just can't or don't pay their bills, a large number of accounts that go to collection go there because either the consumer, or the creditor, made a mistake. The fact that debt collectors assume it is the consumer who made a mistake, so they deserve to have their credit tarnished is no reason for the consumer to accept this treatment from either the creditor, or the debt collector. It is a matter of equity, quality of service, and delivering as promised. Some companies and industries generate a continual stream of collection accounts due to their sloppy, incompetent, or even fraudulent practices: Telecom (cell phones, cable, DSL, satellite TV, etc.), alarm companies, medical providers, health clubs, magazine subscription "services", etc. Pretty much if there is a long term contract for something that could be turned on or off in a week, consumers are at risk to being defrauded. If consumers want to maintain good credit, if it is valuable to them, then they should steer clear of problem companies, and adopt an agressively assertive stance if necessary when problems do arise. They should also minimize opening of accounts, pay only thru intermediaries such as credit card companies, avoid debit cards, research any company before choosing to do business, and generally minimize their exposure to incompetence and fraud. I have yet to see companies truthfully advertise that they have wonderful products at good prices but if you buy from them their billing is so messed up they will cost you more than their product is worth in credit damage.
My position is around the "wrong" mailing address. The OP did not say they had a previous mailing address. It is the contention of error on the part of the CA. From a business perspective, they made an error in their process, and the process defaults to starting over. Posting a TL does not qualify as "communication", it is considered "collection activity". I think any reasonable businessperson would agree with this view. This member is acknowledging the debt, now that they are aware of it, and ready to pay in full. There is no purpose in maintaining the negative TL, and there is sufficient legal reason for removal. I think this incident could be resolved to both parties satisfaction. Start from the beginning of the process, and pay the debt, remove the tradeline, document everything to cover everyone.
If the OC had the correct mailing address, then they had an obligation to send a bill in a timely fashion in the first place. Sending an account to collection as a substitute to just billing your customers normally is not acceptable. If it were a revolving account (CC), it would be illegal under FCBA.
