I am suing a Medical Office for placing a debt into collections that was not mine to pay. They messed up the billing to Medicare and Tricare for life when they tried to bill for some over the counter medications I paid for with my debit card on the date of the visit. They got the correct payment from Medicare, but Tricare paid them the wrong amount due to their error. They then tried for several Months to collect from me. I refused to pay, because they were the ones that billed the visit wrong. They then turned it over to a collection agency although I had sent them proof that they were in the wrong. I am going to sue them in small claims court and would like to know what I should ask for in the way of damages. Any one with any experience like this please reply....
Well, the challenge is determining how much the errant collection costs you financially for the 7 years that the errant collection appears on your credit report (or the length of time that it takes to be deleted). So you will more than likely need to have a forensic accountant who specializes in analyzing credit reports to be able to (a) figure out the number of points that the tradeline affected your credit report by, and (b) the financial damage that you sustained by that increase in your credit score. If they were reporting the account themselves, not causing someone else to report, you'd be using the FCRA as the rationale for the damages, you would need to find some other statute that allows you a recourse on the original creditor for what injury you are sustaining from the OC's incorrectly opening a collection account. And I can tell you the OC's defense will be that they didn't report anything on your credit report, so they aren't liable for what is reported on your credit report. And unless the CA is a party to the suit, the court will probably side with them. Is there a reason you aren't considering filing with the CA as a co-defendant, and filing in Federal Court?
