Can a collection agency sell the remaining balance after settlement...

[Datx]

I know, these are newbie questions but I just want to make absolutely sure...

1. If you settle your account with a CA, can they turn around and sell the remaining balance of the debt to another CA for them to collect?

2. If the collection account falls off your CRs (in my case, it will fall off in October this year) can the current CA sell the debit to another CA? This would basically re-start the 7 years reporting on my CR.

I just want to PIF or settle this collection account and be done with it. I don't want another CA to go after me and continue to poiston my CRs.

[mauve]

Yes, they can sell the remaining debt unless you get it in writing that this payment satisfies the debt in full. 

Even if they do sell it, the reporting does not re-start.  A new CA reporting between now and the drop-off date will drop your score, but the drop off date is determined by the Date of FIRST Delinquency of the ORIGINAL debt. 

[Datx]

Awesome. Thanks for the reply mauve!

[llecs]

To add, when you get it in writing, frame it. I settled with a notoriously bad JDB on behalf of DW in 2000-2001 (Wolpoff & Abramson now defunct, mostly). They go to sue and figured we'd better take care of it (old Cross Country Bank, now Applied Bank CC). The debt was around $800 IIRC and we settled for $500. We paid with a cashier's check and mailed it CMRRR to the CA with a copy of their settlement letter enclosed. They never responded and we figured it was done.

Six years later W&A (or their new name Mann & Bracken) sold the remaining balance, $300 or so, to another CA and they reported. Before we cared about our reports, I did have the presence of mind to mail them a copy of the CMRRR with the copy of the check and settlement and they responded saying they won't recognize any else's settlement because we didn't settle with them. Maybe they failed to see they weren't involved years prior . That CA reported just over the CRTP at the time and we disputed as being too old and they disappeared. The OC drops off at that time on it's own as well, but the CA who bought the debt sold it back to the OC. Each year, both the OC and a new CA will send us a collection notice on the balance and no-way-no-how will they get it and we ignore them.

[Datx]

Thanks for sharing that info llecs. I do plan to save the letter and also the one I get once its paid off. Then plan to email some execs for a GW deletion. Hopefully this all works  out. They would not take a PFD no matter how many times I tried. Wish me luck!