Account no longer held by collection agency

[nick112288]

So I am currently in the process of helping my wife rebuild her credit history.

The only blemish on her report (other than a short history) is a cellphone bill collection. And it only shows on one report.

Well just last year we paid in full and THOUGHT it had been taken care of until we applied for a mortgage.

Turns out it was still showing up as unpaid on her account, so I called the collection agency and inquired about it and they said no, they had put in the request to have it removed and it should have been (it was).

Turns out, the bill had been submitted to a different collection agency, who never contacted her and was the one who was showing up on her report, then they sent it back to the cellphone company/other collection agency, where it had been paid in full.

I contacted the agency still on the report, and asked if they could remove/send a letter saying it was paid in full. They said they couldn't because they were never paid in full.

Like I said it is the only blemish but it has caused that particular report to be 60+ points lower than the other 2, and she's been denied 2 credit cards due to it.

How do I go about getting that first company to remove/say it was paid in full?

[RobertEG]

If a debt collector had current collection authorty at the time the debt was paid, CRA policy is that they should not delete their reporting.

However, if their collection authority was terminated prior to payment of the debt, CRA policy is that they should delete their reporting.

That policy is inteded by the CRAs to prevent the inclusion of two collections reporting on the same debt.

If they terminated their assigned collection authoriy with the OC prior to your payment of the debt, they should delte per CRA policy, which is stated in their credit reporting agreement with the CRA.

[nick112288]

Well just called the collection agency, and received a MUCH more helpful individual this time.

He informed me they no longer had the account and requested in Feb 2013 for it to be removed from her report.

The last guy from the company just informed me they couldn't issue a paid in full letter because they never were.

Looks like it was a credit reporting agency who dropped the ball on this