Thanks Barry. After reading some of yours (and other) advice in regard to collections, etc., I decided to take action on one of my legit collections accounts. I contacted the agency yesterday and arranged a settlement offer and they actually agreed to have the collection account completely removed from my report once the settlement amount was paid in full. Again, I read enough of your posts to know to ask them to give it to me in writing. They agreed and were even willing to fax it to me but the only fax I have is at work and I wasn't comfortable giving out that information. None-the-less they said they would mail the letter out and once I received it I had 30 days to make the first payment and then another 30 for the second. I will probably just pay it all in 1 payment so that it can be removed sonner rather than later. Thank You Thank You Thank You! I would of never thought to even ask if it weren't for reading your other posts.
On a worse note, I have another account that I was trying to bring current but the account manager was so absolutely nasty toward me I ended up ending the conversation prior to making any arrangements. She swore that I had no idea what I was talking about and that a collections agency has no authority to remove an account that they reported to the CB's. After denying me 3 times when asked to speak to a different AM or even a supervisor, she finally transferred me to a man who said, and I quote "..She probably should have worded it differently. We can remove accounts from credit reports but we pick and chose who we want to do that for and we definitely would not do it for you..." He wouldn't repeat his title to me so I'm assuming he wasn't really her supervisor and probably just a co-worker. He literally chuckled at my request and basically told me that if I wasn't prepaired to pay what I owed them at that very moment then he didn't need to speak to me any further. At this point I was shaking and in tears, I'm not even the sensative type! They treated me so unfair and made me feel like less than a person. I have goose bumps right now just thinking about it, they were really really unprofessional and rude.
But I do want to thank you all for posting such informative information. I thought I was going to remain in the "bad credit" realm forever! My parents never mentioned credit or its worth growing up so now that I'm 26 and trying to buy a home I'm feeling the pain. I'm at 550 now, but was at 534 a month and a half ago. Only about 200 more points to go, right?
