@Anonymous wrote:I'm gonna guess the sofware the CA uses to scan the bureaus sniffed a mortgage application in your name come in and flagged ya. I dunno for sure, but anyone who would go through this much trouble for 5 dollars is not really interested in the money, as much as they just want to stick it to ya. It is what it is. I don't know if a 5 dollar collection takes as much from ya score as a 3k so I'd watch the fico scores. Advise your LO you discovered it and see what he/she says on how to proceed. It could well be they don't have to pull your bureau again.
Under the mortgage trifecta of scores, a collection is a collection is a collection.
Known to be stupid, changed in FICO 8, but hardly anyone except a possibly a few portfolio lenders uses that.
@OP: Time Warner sucks, they kept billing my account after I closed it, but unfortunately I didn't find out about that until years later after I'd already paid a collection on it. Sadly I have no choice where I'm going to be moving, rest of the providers are worse but for damned sure going to make certain I stay on top of them this time... and next time know not to just pay a collection out of hand 
