I am hoping to find someone with great wisdom on the scam that is credit reporting. I am trying to clean up my filthy credit standing, and came across an item added last year from my doctor’s office. Mind you, I have been going there for about 15 years and recently quite frequently. Then I see a $93 charge on my credit report, so I give them a call figuring they have made a mistake. I am told it was a charge from 2000. I was never told about this, and they have never mentioned it in all the times I have used their services. To make matters worse, they waited 7 years before selling this to a collection agency, that then went and added it to my credit. So, being that the original charge happened 7 years ago, do my rights allow it to be removed immediately? Also, if I pay it now, does that give it another 7 years. I want to do the right thing, but feel I got jobbed on this deal pretty hard. Suggestions?
That sucks. Sounds like you have been in good standing with this doctor for a number of years. If so, try contacting the office. Let them know of the error and that you obviously would have paid it by now based on your payment history. Then get them to remove it from your credit report. It may take some time, as many places only send in these things every 3 months or so. You can try to push them to do it quicker.
Usually, failure to pursue a debt for more than 2 years after the last activity renders the debt uncollectable.
You can challenge the placement of any item on your credit report, I’d recommend you do so in this case. You can find sample letters on the net.
Too bad you don’t live in Australia or there’s a whooo-oole bunch of shit I could tell you about Credit Listings.
Credit is the biggest load of shit. I’ve found that if you get angry enough with most places, they’ll remove the credit mark.
Collections agencies and credit adjusters are horrible businesses. I can find more delinquent payers using whitepages.com than if I turned everyone over to our credit agency.
The only time I was in collections was for a Verizon bill… and I still had a Verizon number. I wasn’t contacted by the agency for over a year.