Hi, I'm soooooo grateful to have been given a link to this site. I've been browsing and studying for a week now and I'm in awe at the collective experience of all of the posters. I finally feel like I know enough to ask a question <g>: Due to illness, we had three charge-offs in '97. When we got back on our feet, instead of declaring BK, we set to paying all of our 17 creditors back. We've had a long road, and yet are proud that we are now down to only eight creditors left and owing less than half of our original balance. That said, I finally stuck my head out of the sand long enough to peek at our credit report. Our score isn't terrible at 657. However I've discovered that one of the creditors sold or assigned our account a total of seven times, and that each time it is still being listed on our report as open (with different account numbers) by the collection agencies. As if that isn't bad enough, one of the agencies is still marking us 90 days late each month. So in essence, am I being punished each month for payng them $50? It seems so to me. Last week I did not send them a payment for the first time in over four years. Am I right in doing this or am I opening a can of worms? I will mention here that all of our other creditors managed to record accurate information. Did I do something wrong with this one to cause this? From what I've read on this board, it seems that I need to send them a validation letter? I've copied one already and will send it but just wanted some confirmation from this group first. The company is NCO Financial by the way, at least that is who it is with now. And if NCO doesn't respond, then my next step is to dispute it with the CRA's? Then what? On to the collection agency that had it before NCO, and so on? Thanks so much! I've been afraid of this for so long that just hearing from others like me is giving me some hope. Tia
