A $200 collection agency ruined my credit report and my life!

[Dishpro]

i was enjoying my credit rebuild after several years of good willing, begging and pleading with CA's about the last couple of derogs left on my reports. Finally a completely clean report. The last derog fell off and my scores soared to 776, 754 and 764. I applied for Amex NPSL, Barclays NFL $10,000, Discover $7,500, I upped my limits with Home Depot from $500 to $10,000, Best Buy from $500 to $3500. I maintained the scores for a couple of years until my CC Utilization creeped my scores down into the 720's. Until a few months ago  a $200 medical collection took me by complete surprise. I had a medical emergency and didn't have insurance. I made arrangements and made my payments back and on time, so much to my shock when this hit I felt like somebody dropped a bomb. At this point I could lose me job now that I am a CFO for an up and coming dishnetwork Retail company and I was in the process of refi my mortgage. I called the hospital that sent me to collection and they sent me all the records I reqested so that I could find their mistake and have this derog removed once and for all. While I'm in the middle of putting this research together I get a score watch notice. Low and behold the collection is gone and my scores are back in the low 720's. Now the million dollar question. What do I do next. Do I call the hospital and demand to pay the bill even if I do not owe the thing. Will this prevent it from coming back and haunting me down the line? Should I call the CA to find out why it was removed? PLEASE HELP ME! What can I do?

[RobertEG]

I would call the OC and ask if they determined the debt was not valid, and thus terminated the collection.

If they state yes, then you can rightfully omit the debt from any future disclosure requirement.

[Dishpro]

Robert,

now that the derog has been pulled for whatever unknown reason, if it hadn't been pulled because it has been resolved, if I paid for it to the OC if they have it now or even if the CA still has can I pay it in full at this point,

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@RobertEG wrote:

I would call the OC and ask if they determined the debt was not valid, and thus terminated the collection.

If they state yes, then you can rightfully omit the debt from any future disclosure requirement.

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can they still report it as a paid collection or will the fact it's not being reported have some weight on whether they can report it after it has been paid?

[RobertEG]

I would definately want to know if they deleted their reporting because they agree that you dont owe the debt.

That takes care of everyting........ you can omit the debt from any disclosure request, and they cant report a collection on a non-existent debt.

If they still consider the debt legit, then you can offer to pay in exchange for their agreement not to report and/or to terminate any existing collection authority.