Here are the details. Had a medical bill go to CA. Sent OC (doc group) a letter saying I moved, never got statement, blah, blah blah and full payment in exchange for pulling the account from CA. Nothing changed on CR so I disputed. Came back verified, but now listed as PAID collection. Sent CA validation letter, they sent me an old statement they had when they got account. I followed up by sending the OC a sugary sweet, letter saying that their not communicating my request for deletion to the CA must have been an oversite. Well, they sent me copies of the paperwork they faxed to the CA upon receipt of my follow up letter and it says, "Per our phone conversation please process the request of our patient. LD, Acct # xxxxx clearing account and report per attached letter of patient herewidth." Well, a letter from the CA dated that same day says: Dear LD: I have just received a copy of your letter to OC regarding your credit file. The trade line we submitted to Equifax was updated on 12/11/02 to reflect your payment of 11/2502. We cannot remove the trade line since the account was delinquent at the them it was referred for collections. Additionally, the account was in an upaid status for 21 months after the referral. Four letters were sent to you in addition to the statements furnished by our client previous to our involvement. all correspondance requesting payment were ignored. Unfortunately, I cannot honor your request to remove this delinquent ac**** from your credit records. Sincerely, Suckass Collection Manager I called and spoke with lady at the doc office who sent the information to the CA. She said that she sent it to them specifically so that they could remove the TL from my report. I told her that the doc office is the client and the CA should be doing what THEY instruct. This lady was so nice, but frankly her own shadow probably upsets her. I thanked her and decided to call upon my CN buddies. I am so mad, I can barely type. I will do anything at this point to make these jerks pay. Help me go credit pit bull on these twits.
If you relied on the information provided by the OC (promise to delete) as part of your settlement agreement and payment and now they want to play games I would send a letter such as the estoppel letter from www.creditwrench.com website. Send that to Ms. Nervous Nelly at the OC and perhaps she will go to bat and use it to beat the CA's brains out. If you made the agreement with the OC then make them force the CA to comply.
Thanks for the response. I think the OC feels that their duty has been fulfilled by instructing the CA to delete, but ultimately its between me and the CA now. I'm sure someone out there has been in a similar situation with a CA refusing to delete a paid collection which they weren't even part of ( I paid the OC directly). Is there ANYTHING in FCRA or FDCPA I can use as grounds to sue the CA. Any/all help is appreciated. Lisa
Have you asked the lady from the Doctor's office to mail/fax you a copy of what she sent to CA. She could be lying and if she isn't you could use the letter to get a deletion from the CRA.
I did. She sent me a copy of the fax coversheet (with the confirmation page showing it was transmitted) that said: "Per our phone conversation please process the request of our patient. LD, Acct # xxxxx clearing account and report per attached letter of patient herewidth." Would this, in addition to a copy of the letter I sent to the OC be enough for the CRA to delete? Lisa
Anything is worth a try, but in the end you may be forced to accept the fact that sometimes the bull does win the fight.
I think the trick to medical collections in this case would be in the getting the exact wording in the agreement as below. "The medical provider agrees to communicate to the collection agency that the patient's account was placed in error and all references to this patient owing a debt to this medical provider should be removed."
If the CA is ACE recovery just use the knockout letter, to both the OC and CA, i was in this EXACT same situation, word for word, the OC told the CA to delete and the CA would not, after i paid the OC, they told me to sue them if i had to, I faxed the KO letter and they collapsed like a house of cards, search for it, fax it and mail it CRR the same day. i bet they remove it, esp if you paid it already.
