Hello, a collection agency, whose initials are AA, is really irritating me and any advice would be appreciated. The original debt was incurred in 1998 when my ex-girlfriend let some artist dude from Barbados call her collect on my phone. The resulting bill was around $300. I never paid it, and the phone company sold the debt to a collection agency who turned around and sold it to another CA, the one who is currently annoying me. My questions are; 1) On my credit report, the collection agency listed the a "date opened" field as 12/2000. Is that legal? When the phone company debt originated in early 1998? 2) Every three months or so, the CA updates the "date reported" field on my credit report, evidently so I will not forget about them. Is this legal? This is what is really screwing up my credit scores, because I always have a very recent derogatory listing on my reports even though the debt is almost six years old. 3) Should I pay the debt off? The balance is about $600 now, and I only have about 18 months to go before deletion, but I want to buy a house now. I talked to the CA today (for the first time), and they said even if I paid they could not alter the collection account listing in any way except to read "paid in full". What advantages and disadvantages are there in paying? I imagine that the "date reported" field would again be updated, but would this new update be harmful or beneficial to my credit score? Any other advice? Thanks for being here Credit Wizards, Spike
1) The Date Opened is an absolute. It is the date the tradeline opened on your credit report. While I agree with you, the Date Opened probably should be reported as the date the original debt was opened, they legally can have the Date Opened set as the date they recieved the debt for collection. There should still be a Date of Last Activity (or some other wording like that) which shows the debt is from 1998. 2) The Date Reported field, unfortunatly, is also a field that is exactly what it says it is. The last date the creditor reported the debt. This would be the last time they sent their data tape into the CRA with all the debitors they were assigned to collect against. The CRA updates that field, because the collection agency submits their files with your tradeline included in it, and even thou nothing on the tradeline is changing, they still can update the existance of it. It will still show the date of last activity, so anyone looking at your credit report sees this unpaid charge off with a date of last activity in 98. So when they update the file, it should do absolutly nothing to your scores as long as none of the fields in that tradeline get updated (status, balance, past due balance, exc.) 3) In my honest opinion, I say you should probably go through the validation / dispute route with this collection agency. Send a validation latter to them (there are many good validation letters on CN) Send it CRRR, and then when you get the green card back, dispute it with the CRA. With a debt that is going on 5 1/2 years old, it's very unlikely that the CA will have or be able to get proper validation of the debt. Keep your paper trail on it, and be prepaired to go through all the hoops. If and only if the following 3 factors are met offer to pay them 1: They provide full validation, original agreement with the phone company, bill that the call is on, and all subsequent bills showing the debt charging off. 2: In addition to having full validation, they can account legally for all fees and interest that they claim you owe coming to the $600 balance they now claim. This is important. The original agreement with the phone company should clearly state all the fees and interest that they will charge it, and then must give instructions for the amount of fees and interest that can be added on if the account goes to collection. If it doesn't give a stipulation for the account going to collections, they legally can not add any fees or interest to your debt and must only ask for the amount that was charged off. 3: You found a house that you want, and need to have all charge offs paid in order to secure a mortgage. If the CA can't validate the debt, then you may have a good chance of getting it deleted. If you do get to the point where you've decided to pay it off in order to get a mortgage, try and offer in writing an agreement with the CA to "Delete the tradeline for payment in full" Make sure that you are very clear in the wording of the offer, and let them know that a paid charge off is as bad to your credit as an unpaid charge off, so if they don't want to delete for payment, you probably won't pay them. Write up the agreement to delete for payment in full and include an agreement separate from your letter letting them know what you're offering, and require that the agreement be signed and returned to you, at which point you will send payment to them. If they agree, pay with a check from your checking account, that way you will have the copy of the check so you can sue them if they don't issue delete orders to all the credit reporting agencies. Now if they won't agree to delete for payment, let them stew for 2-3 months, then send them a 50% settlement offer where you pay them 50% of the debt, and they accept that as payment in full, and mark it paid in full. If they're going to leave the blemish on your credit report, don't pay the full amount. But the hope here, is that when you go the validate / dispute route, that they will either commit such flagrant violations of the FDCPA that you can file suit, or that they will just send it back, and it will get deleted from your credit report. Hope I was useful. ChrisB
If this CA is American Agencies, good luck. They violate ALL THE TIME! Keep at it, eventually they will wear down.
With a bill unpaid from 1998 there is avery good chance the Statute of Limitations has passed. Check your State Statute of Limitations laws and if SOL is expired you can tell AA to stuff their bill where the sun doesn't shine.
