I'm in need of some assistance and have a few questions.
First, I am a 46 year old male, and have never used credit in my life.
About 9 months ago I opened up a fingerhut account, tried to use it, my order didn't place, and I thought there granting me credit was some sort of scam, so I just forgot about it.
A few weeks ago I got a credit card pre-approval letter in the mail. I was surprised, since to my knowledge I had no credit history. I decided to go ahed and apply, and got approved, although with a very low limit.
I then decided this might be a good time in my life to try to work on my credit. I pulled my credit reports and found that I had a negative mark that was in collections, for $1800 dollars, dating back about three years.
At that time I was unemployed and without insurance, and had an accident where I split my head open and had to go the ER for treatment. Like many people, I'm sure, I didn't have the money, and the bill never got paid. Now, I am wondering how much this might be impacting my credit score, and if there is any means to get this removed since it's been sold off to some third-party collection agency. I'm not here to argue the ethics over weather I should pay the collection agency or not. I'm asking if there is any legitimate way I can have this mark removed, thus improving my credit score, without having to wait until 2017 for it to fall off of my repart naturally.
Any help is very much appreciated. Thank you
Michael.
