medical collection

[soccerguy]

my credit report just got hit with a medical collection(unpaid)
the debt was incurred almost 1 year ago
what should i do now?
possible to get them to delete it?


thanks

[frogger]

Not a lot of information to go on......

Have you paid it? Do you intend to pay it? What's the plan?

[soccerguy]

Not a lot of information to go on......

Have you paid it? Do you intend to pay it? What's the plan?

no has not been paid
yes i plan on paying it
its reporting wrong balance
looks like collecting agency is adding interest and fees to balance

[LadyInTheRed]

Sounds like they are correctly reporting the debt. They probably will continue to do so until you pay it.

[justbroke]

And, they will continue to add late fees, interest, attorney fees, and any other fees that they are expending in order to collect the debt. If you were going to get a settlement, try to get one in exchange for removing the entry (via eOscar) and get it in WRITING.

[soccerguy]

what is eOscar?

[justbroke]

what is eOscar?

It's a system that lets them update the credit bureaus "immediately".

[GoingDown]

Out of curiosity, has anyone on this forum had success getting a debt collector to actually remove a negative mark on their credit reports?

With the one credit card I settled with (Citibank), all they did was change the balance to zero, and put a statement on there that said "Settled for an amount less than what was owed" and then it stayed on my credit report for the remaining 6 years of the 7 year reporting period. Still negative until it finally dropped off when the 7 years were over.

[Pjmax]

Unfortunately, paid and unpaid collections are scored the same. Not much incentive (for your credit report) to pay them.

[justbroke]

Out of curiosity, has anyone on this forum had success getting a debt collector to actually remove a negative mark on their credit reports?

Yes, I did. But it was because they were wrong and could not prove a debt (which absolutely was not my debt). It was not a case where I actually owed the debt and was playing the debt verification game. They actually told me that they could not verify the debt so I demanded immediate removal. They removed it via eOscar, and it was immediate!

Having wrote that, this means that they do have the ability to remove things. If you're going to negotiate a "settlement" make sure you demand that they remove the entry and put it in writing. Otherwise, what they do is what happened to you. They just update it as paid, $0, and settled for less than balance!