I need your help Seniors,please I am having a problem here, I have an outstanding account (dental bill). The original debt was a year ago $400 sent to collection they increased it to $600. I am willing to pay the origninal amount ($ 400)plus interest but not the $ 600. It does not show on my credit reports as off yet. I want to pay it with a guarantee that it will not reported to Credit Bureau ...How can I approach the original creditor or collection agency in a safe way ? phone or writing , fax??....I do not want to trigger them to report it to Credit Bureau I placed a call to the dental office today but they did not want to accept the original debt plus interest,(The girl sounded new not knowing what to do) they said there is $200 collection fees....Please help
Do you know if the dentist has sold the debt or assigned it? If they already sold it, then you'll need to work directly with the CA. If it's just been assigned, then I would approach someone who has some authority at the dentist and request that they pull it back from collections in return for payment in full. Dentists and doctors are generally easier to work with and cooperative when you're willing to just pay them what you owe. If you can't pay it all at once, you may even be able to negotiate a payment plan with them. As always, get any agreement in writing.
Thank you Joshua for guiding me through this process. I contacted the Dentist office, the girl who answered stated that the office manager is out of town.She said we can take the payment. does that mean it was just assigned?. If I ask, would they tell me? I tried to contact CA but they have the phone calls recorded so the conversation ended prematurely,as this call may be used to validate the debt later. Shall I contact via fax instead? with my agreement to sign and fax it back. How about this letter which I got from this website. Account no: Dear Sir or Madam: This letter is an offer to amicably settle the above account. It is not to be construed as an acknowledgment of my liability for this debt in any form. I will pay your company the amount of $XXXX as full settlement of this account. If you accept this agreement, I will send you a money order or certified cashiers check for the settlement amount of $XXXX in exchange for a full deletion of all references regarding this account from my credit profile and full satisfaction of the debt. This agreement is binding and will be void should you not hold up to your end of the agreement. Furthermore the debt will be deleted from my credit profile at all three credit bureaus, or the bureaus your company regularly reports to in the course of doing business. If you agree to the above, please acknowledge with your signature and return a copy to me. Upon receipt of this signed acknowledgment, I will promptly send you a money order or cashiers check in the amount stated above. Notice: This agreement is restricted. This is not a renewed promise to pay, but rather a restricted settlement offer only. By not signing below, you agree that the debt has not been renewed nor have any concrete written agreements been exchanged. Thank You. I look forward to resolving this matter in the best interest for both of our parties. Creditorâ??s Authorized Signature: _____________________ Date:____________ Name: ______________________ Title : _____________________________ Please Sign and return by fax to Again thank you for your help.
Check your consumer protection laws in your state. Some states, like WV, do not allow a consumer to be charged a collection fee.
The fact that the Dentist office is willing to work with you means they've probably just assigned the debt to a CA to collect on their behalf. If you ask them and the person actually knows what you're talking about, I don't see why they wouldn't confirm this for you. Anyway, I would keep working with the Dentist at the moment, not the CA, and get the office manager involved as soon as he/she returns. They should have the power to pull it back from collections for you and resolve the matter in-house.
Well, I got to disagree with just about all comments here so far. Sorry about that. (LOL). The first thing I would do is get the cash money and get to the dentist's office as fast as possible and simply tell the office girl that you came to pay your bill and nothing more. If the office girl accepts the payment in full and gives you a receipt marked paid in full then nobody has any recourse against you. If the office girl made a mistake that isn't your fault. They should have trained her better. If the debt collector starts in on you wanting their money then send a debt validation letter. They are almost certainly going to make a big mistake at that point because if they go back to the dentist to get validation of the debt the dentist has to say you don't owe anything to them. So now the debt collector either has to admit that what they are trying to collect is their fees and your defense is that their contract is with the dentist and if the dentist owes them money then let the dentist pay what he owes. What the dentist might owe isn't your responsibility. You met your responsibility and you have the proof in hand. I've gone that route before and so I know that the debt collector can't legally come after you for his fees. They can try but they can't win because you don't have any contract with them, they didn't perform any service for you and you didn't buy anything from them. Lots of people try that argument in court when they get sued by a debt collector but the argument is silly at that point because the defendant didn't or couldn't do the right thing and settle in full with the original creditor so the debt collector had to file a lawsuit to effect collection. The argument that the consumer has no contract will work so long as the consumer can short circuit the debt collector by paying the original creditor and getting a paid in full receipt. That is the crucial difference.
Thank you for your help guys. There are 2 issues here ,the dental office(front office girl) is requesting the same (collection fees) $200 more than they should. I explained to her I am willing to pay debt in full plus reasonable interest 2%. she referred me to the manager. The second concern is what if they report the debt to Credit Bureau after payment?
I really can't advise you what to do but I can say that I think your offer of payment in full plus reasonable interest is very fair and if I were in your situation I would not agree to paying any much more than that. I would also say that if they would not settle for that then I would just tell them that you will have to deal with the collection agency and then I would get my Informal bankruptcy process going so that in the end I would make them pay me instead of the other way around. That is the way I would handle it if I were in your shoes.
To learn about that and much, much more all you have to do is click on the only link in this message and you will go to my google docs page and there you can find the link to the answer to your question. In fact, you can find the answer to most debt related topics and much more. Try it. Just click on the link and learn.
