Fair Credit Reporting

I wanted to know if a company needs to contact you before they put a negative line on your credit report.

I thought I had read in a book that they did but I recently got a letter from a collection agency demanding immediate payment for a service I canceled back in January 2001

I owned a business that I inc. back in April 2000 I used The Company Corporation to incorp my business.

I got a ltr in Jan 2001 from them advising me that my registrar service would run out in April 2001

It stated that credit would be extended to all companies, so I called them and advised them I would not be interested in having them be my registrar (which means they get all my corporate mail and forward it to me). I can get my mail myself and I don't really need a corprate veil as they call it. I just incorporated for the tax benefits.

Anyway their rep said I didn't need to do anything further and in April my service would stop. A few weeks later I got one more letter from them, but I thought they just send it to everyone as a last ditch effort for us to take their service.

Now 8 months later I have a collection letter advising me to save myself futher embarrassement & further legal action I need to pay $150 immediately.

I went online & pulled my credit. They have already placed a collection on my credit report.

I hadn't heard 1 word from them in nearly 8 months and my service with them ran out on April 3 2001.

Is it legal for them to place a collection with no notification even after I have made a call canceling their service?

I thought once their time ran out it would automatically revert back to me. I hardly run the corp anymore since we were internet based and I would have dissovled the corp except I owe taxes and need to pay them before I can dissolve the corporation.

Any advice would be appreicated. I suffered with bad credit for 7 years. 2 years ago I had a credit score of a 612 then in March I checked it again and I had a 672. I'm not sure what the score is now since the report I pulled didn't give it to me, but I think it must have dropped significantly with a $150 unpaid collection on there.

Thank you
Liz

 

Thanks for the answers. I would just think that a creditor would want to notify someone or would have to notify someone before sending them to collections.

A letter must be cheaper than hiring a collection agent!

Anyway, I will pursue this further by writing to the cbrs and I'm filing a complaint with the BBB. I just don't feel that its right for them to do this to me or to anyone.

Liz

 

This problem has been resolved (I HOPE!). I was ready to go toe to toe w/ them, but I lucked out. When I had called them in January to cancel my acct. I was in my new office having a phone jack installed.

I was so impressed with the way my rep handled my cancellation I raved to the installation guy that if he ever decided to incorporate his business he should use the same service.

He seemed really interested at the time and I printed out their website for him before he left.

On a long shot I called him up to see if he remembered me and the conversation we had about how easy it would be to incorporate his business using the same company.

He not only remembered me, but had actually used them to incorporate his business.

I called up their customer service, advised them I had a witness and they told me to just chg my registrar w/ the state and fax them proof that I had chged it and they would drop the whole matter.

I still wrote a letter to them & their collection agency to dispute the debt (rtn recpt of course) and then called the state to get the docs that I need.


Thanks for replying

Liz