I am trying to help one of my friends clean up her credit. She has a medical bill on her account that has been sent to collections even though she never received any correspondence. This was from 1996, but it was just added to her report during January of this year. For some reason, this claim was never submitted to her insurance. What should be her basis for disputing this? Is the fact that they never submitted it to her insurance company reason enough? Also, is it supposed to come off next year but if I dispute it will it make the last activity date the date of my dispute?
Do a validation letter via certified mail. If they don't respond, tell the CRA that they couldn't validate and to remove it. I did this online and it came off. Some times they send you a letter saying it was sent back to the original creditor because they couldn't validate. Then you can dispute and say it is not yours and it comes off because they no longer hold the account.
Smit is right. Here is one more idea. A lot of the insurers have a contract with the participating doctors saying that they will not pay a bill submitted after a certain period of time after services renderd (90 - 180 days). In addition, the offending doctor is not allowed to collect from the patient either. I just got one doctor bill forgiven last week because of this contract clause. Can you find out if your insurer has this policy?
