Unfortunately, I am here again! A couple months back I came here looking for advice, as an electricity company had reported me to collections due to some errors made while I was moving out. Fortunately, I got it all figured out without affecting my credit (whoo hoo!), thanks to y'all. Since that whole fiasco, I've been paying for credit monitoring.... Well, the other day I received a notification that Torres Collection services had reported me for $25! My credit score went down from 720 to 610 because of this Prior to this, I have never had contact with these people. They may have sent mail to my old address, and they never called until 2 days ago (turns out they reported me on 12/08/2010). I didn't pick up. I already reported these people to the FTC for not contacting me before doing this, and I plan to contact the BBB as well. Anyway, it turns out the $25 was for the natural gas company. I called them and ended up paying the balance. They said they report this to the collection agency monthly. Now, I need to get the record off the CB's. Should I dispute it? What should I do next? I am a bit lost! Last time I just sent the collection agency a validation letter and that settled matters, but this time its even more complicated! Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated it. I just graduated college last week..... what a way to enter adulthood.
I don't think you can get this off the credit report. You paid them without negotiating to delete the entry.
If you paid the utility company and not the CA., I would suggest you get something in writing on the utility companies letterhead stating that you paid them in full. Also, ask them how it got to a CA after paying them.
Since the account was legitimately past due, they aren't under any obligation to take it off your report. Just because it's "paid" doesn't mean it gets automatically removed. They must update it to reflect paid, but it will still show as a late payment for up to 7 years from the date of delinquency. Unless I'm misunderstanding and the bill was never late to begin with, but it sounds like you paid the utility AFTER hearing from the CA.
I called the collection agency and had a talk with them. First time, they offered delete-for-pay but refused to send me a letter saying they would delete it. When I refused, saying that the bill is inaccurate, they hung up on me. Second them, they said deletion was impossible. The fact is, the report is accurate in the sense that the debt was valid. However, since I have moved I received no notification or contact from either the utility company or the collection agency. They sent letters that I never got, and I only came to know about this until I got a call on 12.27. I am going to call the utility company again and try to have then intervene. (beg) Wish me luck.
Just wanted to report that I successfully had Experian remove the collections from my report. I disputed the item online and received an email saying it was deleted within a week. Interesting....
