So I just called a CA to discuss a PFD with them for two accounts showing on my CR. They total 201. They said I actually have FIVE accounts with them, and that I owe like 630! Now, the CSR did talk to his super and said they will PFD for the full balance. However, as with the CA I talked to yesterday, they will NOT mail me a letter to that effect, nor will they send me an email. However, he specifically agreed that once the balance is PIF they will delete, NOT change the entry to paid in full. They had some trouble identifying one of the account, possibly due to the amount changing from interest. I specifically stated "If I pay the full balance, ALL entries on my CR from (CA) will be deleted, and ALL the accounts they are referencing will never be reported. He said yes. Now, to be fair, they are all medical accounts, and even the ones I didn't know about may in fact be owed. My question is, what do I do?
@msf12555 wrote:So I just called a CA to discuss a PFD with them for two accounts showing on my CR. They total 201. They said I actually have FIVE accounts with them, and that I owe like 630! Now, the CSR did talk to his super and said they will PFD for the full balance. However, as with the CA I talked to yesterday, they will NOT mail me a letter to that effect, nor will they send me an email. However, he specifically agreed that once the balance is PIF they will delete, NOT change the entry to paid in full. They had some trouble identifying one of the account, possibly due to the amount changing from interest. I specifically stated "If I pay the full balance, ALL entries on my CR from (CA) will be deleted, and ALL the accounts they are referencing will never be reported. He said yes. Now, to be fair, they are all medical accounts, and even the ones I didn't know about may in fact be owed. My question is, what do I do?
Hey msf,
Here is what I would do. FIrst I would find out how long do you have before they are scheduled to drop off your CR? If they are to drop soon, then why not just let them fall off. I am not advocating that you don't pay the debt(s) if they are legit, but if there isn't much time left, you may have more leverage to have them delete it even for less money. If the SOL has expired for these debts, the only leverage they have is to hurt your credit report.
Now, on the other hand, if you still got a few years to go, then I would just PIF. Granted there is no guarantee that they will remove them, but I can also understand why they are reluctant to send something in writing that they will remove the TLs from your CR. From reading here, looks like CRAs really don't like that. After all, the CR is only as valuable as its accuracy. If I can't trust the CR to be accurate to asses someone's creditworthiness, the whole credit system can come down crashing. Paid Collection may not help your score, but it will help you a lot on manual review - if a lender actually reads your credit report. Paying it - if they don't follow through on their promise to delete - will not hurt your score. It may only help.
Hope that helps a little.
