I recently got my credit reports from the three CRAs and noticed something that caught my eye. This is the first time I've gotten my credit report ever (I know, I know) and I had no idea these even came to me. First was a medical bill. Something small. Was $104.00 and I can pay it off easily. But it shows up on my CR as unpaid and charged off to a collection agency. This was for a hospital visit in October of 2005. I never ever remember seeing a bill and if I did, I would have paid it. This isn't that hard to pay. The second is a bill from Verizon. I used a landline back in 2004 for a short while when I was subletting from a friend of mine. Wasn't his fault as he never used phone service and I thought a landline would be useful. When I left, the building never forwarded my letters and I never got the bill for that either. It's also just $80.00 which is another sum which is absolutely no problem to pay. It was also charged off to a collection agency and I had no idea this bill even existed. What I'm hoping to do is contact these collection agencies directly to see if I can get a 3 bureau delete in exchange for full payment. I don't have a problem with paying it in full as long as I can get a delete, especially since these are services that I know I used, but I just never got the damn bills so I wasn't the wiser. I checked the creditnet library, but couldn't find a letter template for this kind of situation, and I don't really have any idea where to start. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to write such a letter, or if a template for this exists and I just missed it, could someone point me to it? Hopefully someone can give me some insight asap since I'd like to absolutely get these off my records immediately. Thanks in advance!
I would use a goodwill letter, and just explain the situation. Be sure to point out that they were sending the bill to the wrong address, and that you would like to pay in full in exchange for deletion.
