Today, I really feel like a loser. I have done a really good job of establishing new credit and cleaning up past bad credit, but today I was delt a big blow. I get a "credit alert" from truecredit telling me that I have a "Major Derrogitory" that just showed up. I utilize multiple caller id blocking tools and call recording tools that I hava at my disposal, and call the colection agency to see what this is all about. They inform me that it is for Long-Distance service on a home phone line that I had about 5 years ago and that I owe $350 on the account. The name of the company rings a bell, but I can not 100% gurantee that this is a legit debt. After mutiple calls to the CA today, I got a hold of a girl that I thought would be helpful. She was nice and kept letting me know her supervisor was still on the phone and would be with me shortly. She connected me with the supervisor when she became available, but the supervisor refused to delete my collections from the big 3 and basically told me that I was screwed, even if I paid the debt in full. I offered to pay the $350 in full if they would delete the info, but they told me they do not do that. They "don't delete accurate information", although I never said the info was accurate. I then called the OC. I entered my previous phone number for the CA account and was offered the option of paying the $350 outstanding balance. This was strange to me. If the account was turned over to a Collection Agency, why would they allow me to pay on the account? I begged and pleaded, but I was not allowed to talk to a supervisor. The rep just told me that "it's against our policy to delete accurate information", even though I never said the info was accurrate. I was thinking about the following.... 1) Pay the account and then send the original creditor a variation of the "Litigious Nutcase" letter and wait. 2) Pay the debt with a friend's credit card and admit nothing. Sure, somebody paid the debt, but it was NOT ME! 3) Do some type of Debt Validation and hope for the best. I don't know much about DV, so please give me some ifo if you have it!! I would appreciate any advice!
Dont pay unless they agree to delete. Send them a certified letter giving them this option, mention that they either delete this negative, or they will receive nothing!. Also mention under FDCPA, they may NOT contact you via phone, only allow them to contact you in writing. If you pay this it will not help your score, it might hurt it. If they refuse to your terms, file a complaint with the BBB. If you pay this without their agreement in writing to delete it, good luck getting it removed. If they still refuse after all this, don't pay it leave it 2 more years. "Paid collection", is the same as "Unpaid Collection".
Some guy at some law office called me today about a $1656.66 claim against an original First USA credit card debt of $809.48 This was charged off like on 2002 and sent to collection, which is obviously this law office. (866_ 242_5561) This guy finally reached me at my work. He's talking to me about settling the account, but what reason do I have to pay him? Should I tell this guy to go screw himself? BZ
