I have had a collections go on my credit report. It was my fault, I moved and did not update my address, so here I am a year later and my score went from an 801 last month to 705, due to that delinquent acct on my report. I was contacted by a collection agency that stated If i paid them @ 300$ they would "dispute it" (due to errors between the 3 bureaus that had "wrong dates on each bureaus") and they would "guarantee" me it would come off my credit report.


My question is does this sound legit? I will pay 300 to get that score back up there to 800 again. ..OR...
Once it is on my report, it can not be deleted?


I am trying to "fix this" but I am afraid I am too late

any suggestions for fixing this..


alos, I googled the company that handled the collections and offered to "fix it" on my report, that had horrible reviews on google but those reviews were from debtors being collected on not so much people having their credit reports fixed..
I am just bummed as I worked VERY hard for several years after the divorce to get that socroe up only to make a stupid mistake like this and not be able to fix it.

any help/advice is appreciated !

Happened to me once in the late 90’s as a college student putting myself through school. Evictions were a thing in my childhood due to the one parent I had under the same roof, who was never home when I was, who was an absolute imbecile when it came to $ and paying bills. Same thing in college for me. I moved 11 times in college, had to, whole starving student type situation always looking for a better or lower cost option. I moved this one time, where I went from an apt to a friend’s house. His parents moved to California or Colorado, forget which but wanted to keep the house so their son asked several of us to move in and split the rent (mortgage). I guess I had something stupid like $30 in leftover kwh bill, and for some reason the bill didn’t get forwarded to my new address (I set up mail forwarding immediately upon moving). So they put it on my credit report and fucked me.

All I had to do was pay the bill, and mail the credit agencies, that it was paid and full and they removed it. So I would try to independently verify this company wanting $300 to do it. If you can verify them as legit I would do it if it were me. As you know that credit rating is your ass, and as long as you are above 750, you’re G2G on most any financing you do for anything and get the lowest APR’s. Mine recently hit 854 and I thought it topped out at 850 so now I want to push mine towards 900. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that FICO is literally more important than money.

You can do what they're offering to do yourself, and it would cost you nothing but a few minutes to type up a letter.

Credit Bureaus and creditors are bound by a number of laws. Even if their reporting is accurate, you may challenge it and they are required to provide you with evidence of its legitimacy. If they are unable to do so, then it must be removed.

If you have evidence that it is reported incorrectly, you can also offer that directly to the bureau and demand that it be removed.

No need to pay somebody to do either of these things.

Contact the creditor first and tell them what happened and that you'll gladly pay it.
They need to agree, in writing, that they will either get it removed or put a note explaining what happened.

Yeah, it's not too late, and you don't need that service to take care of this, assuming you paid the bill once you found out about it.

Each of the agencies has a process to challenge/dispute something that shows up on your credit report. Here's Equifax's, for example.

Doesn't cost anything. Save yourself $300 and send them essentially what you put in the OP (adding the bit about your having paid it immediately after discovering the issue, assuming that's the case.)

The OP is unclear whether the $300 is the amount of the debt owed, or whether it's this agency asking $300 just for their assistance in removing the already-paid debt from the credit report.

If it's $300 to pay off a $300 old debt that's now held by this collection agency, and then they'll clear the report for you, then do that.

But if you've already paid that old debt, and it's $300 just for their help in getting it off your report, that's a waste of money. As stated by previous posters, you can do that yourself for free.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
The OP is unclear whether the $300 is the amount of the debt owed, or whether it's this agency asking $300 just for their assistance in removing the already-paid debt from the credit report.

If it's $300 to pay off a $300 old debt that's now held by this agency, and then they'll clear the report for you, then do that.

But if you've already paid that old debt, and it's $300 just for their help in getting it off your report, that's a waste of money. As stated by previous posters, you can do that yourself for free.

Sounds like a credit repair company wanting a $300 fee to clear his report.

Steer clear of them, and pull your reports, see what is posted and if you still owe, contact the creditor and see if you pay it in full they will remove it

Pay who you originally owed

Then contact all three credit bureaus and start the process of disputing items on your credit report. I did it a few years ago and it worked great

https://consumer.ftc.gov/artic...-your-credit-reports

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
The OP is unclear whether the $300 is the amount of the debt owed, or whether it's this agency asking $300 just for their assistance in removing the already-paid debt from the credit report.

If it's $300 to pay off a $300 old debt that's now held by this collection agency, and then they'll clear the report for you, then do that.

But if you've already paid that old debt, and it's $300 just for their help in getting it off your report, that's a waste of money. As stated by previous posters, you can do that yourself for free.

That sounds good in theory but the collection person will say anything to get you to give them the money. It's not like they'll get a bonus for getting the ding removed.

I'm with the other people who say contact the original creditor. You may still have to live with the ding however.

But the OP could put in a note in the credit file to explain the snafu.

quote:

Once it is on my report, it can not be deleted?

After the account is paid, it will show as a paid collection instead of delinquent, and go away automatically after X amount of time. Make damned sure the account is credited, because I don't trust this collection agency as far as I can throw them to keep their word. And even if your credit score stays at "only" 705, you are still in the ~90th percentile.

The collection agency bought your debt for pennies on the dollar.

They now own the debt.

Each major credit agency has its own dispute process.

The credit agency has 45 days to respond to you. The first thing to do is ask for proof of debt.

Most of these people can't provide it.

If they can't or don't bother the credit bureau has to delete it.

The Credit Agency could care less about you but the Fair Credit Reporting Act FCRA has teeth and it was put in place to stop people from getting screwed.

Approaching the original creditor is not a good strategy unless it is their people reaching out to collect. This is unlikely. You could end up paying twice to have it removed.

If you get proof of debt, you can always negotiate with the current collection agency to take less and agree to clear the debt.

Only pay if you have this in writing.

Do not accept just a listing of the debt, they need some sort of agreement in writing that the debt is yours. Something with your signature or a digital printout with your agreement also works.

Good luck, in the old days this could days on the phone.

Most of this is now automated.

I wouldn't pay anything to a collections agency and I would never trust them to remove a negative report once they have your money.

Happened to me earlier this year. Depending on the agency my score was between 800-850. I had a medical bill that I never received show up as a collection on my report and my score dropped 100 points.

I called the original debt holder, a hospital. They confirmed the debt. Because they sold the debt there was nothing they could do to clear it. They could not take my payment even if they and I wanted to.

I called the collection agency and they accepted 60%. And it took about 2 months, but it dropped off and my score went back to normal.

Now, I know there are different rules for medical debt, so you may have to jump through another hoop, but that was my experience.

quote:

I was contacted by a collection agency that stated If i paid them @ 300$ they would "dispute it" …

That is bogus. It's not their credit report. If anybody is going to do any "disputing" it would be you.

It is unclear how the collection agency contacted you. Was it just a phone call, or in writing showing the original creditor? If the former, definitely get it in writing.

Spoke to the original debtor yesterday, paid it off in full and they agreed to "remove from collections" and show it "paid in full " to the credit bureaus , they also said it may take a month or two to show up and I plan to also write letters to all CB's to have it removed also. thanks fellas. saved me 300$ !

^^^ It won't be removed.

Removing it from collections means that they will no longer be contacting you to collect it, which they can't do since you have now admitted the debt was yours and paid it off.

It will take a few reporting cycles for that change to be reflected with the bureaus, and it will no longer show as a delinquent account.

However, it will still show as a late payment for 7 years (in most cases). The entire premise of the credit reporting system is to accurately reflect your payment history. Now that all of this is accurate, that's what it will show.

The only way it would have been removed would have been to challenge the legitimacy of the debt and had them fail to meet their legal burden.

I do believe the current exception for this may be medical bills. I know there has been talk about removing all medical related debt from the credit reporting systems, but if I'm not mistaken the current system allows it to be reported and then removed once paid.

quote:

write letters to all CB's to have it removed

Start a dispute, letters aren't going to cut it

You already know this, but those credit repair companies are generally scams.

Dispute it yourself, but if it is a real debt, it won't work.

thanks fellas, It was a debt I owed, but it slipped thru the cracks after I had my surgery , had someone handling my money and bills and they let it slip thru, I may try anyways. cant hurt.

You can try requesting a goodwill removal from your credit report based on your situation. You may have some luck with that. Was it a credit card or another type of payment?

I had an issue a few years ago with an Amex credit card. I paid off the balance on the card, and the next day the interest charge hit. But I rotate cards and stopped using that one so I didn't notice there was a balance remaining ($12). It wasn't until Credit Karma alerted me of a ding on my credit score for being 2 months delinquent that I noticed. After numerous calls to the call centers and them saying there was nothing they could do, I finally got ahold of their CEO's email and sent him a very brief explanation of the situation. I got an email back later that night and a phone call from his office the next day and it was removed.