Collections account disappeared for no reason!

[greenpang]

Thanks for everyone's amazing help and insight here. I can't praise the quality of the community enough!

I've just started the GW process for some old baddies, but in doing so, I noticed that a unique situation with a collections account just disappeared...

I have screen shots of credit reports over the years and went back to them to confirm I wasn't going crazy. Nope, it's just gone, and I didn't do anything about it.

The account was a $372 medical bill I was charged after a routine annual pap smear. I had (and have) full-coverage health insurance and should never have to pay anything more than a $10 copay for my annual gyno visit. The pap was coded as an "experimental procedure," and I got hit with this bill. Tried to correct it, but that involved the coordination of my doctor's office + my insurance company + the labwork company + the billing company. Somewhere in there, people were incompetent and it wasn't corrected before being sent to collections. I started getting harassed and explained the long version of this story to every collector who called.

It was still on my report (for all 3) in June 2012, but it's gone (for all 3) now. (Wasn't scheduled to be removed until 2016.)

I don't know if a CSR sympathized with my frustration and pulled some strings or what, but, exciting! (And I'm happier than ever I stuck to my guns and refused to cough up that money for a pap smear.) Anyone know how/why this could happen?

[RobertEG]

Debt collectors will delete for several reasons not based on an action by the consumer.

First, if they did not own the debt, they may either have decided to withdraw their collection activities, or the owner of the debt may have terminated them, possibly in favor of securing another debt collector.

Second, if the owned the debt, they may have sold it to another debt collector, and thus also have no further ongoing collection.

In either event, CR deletion is a good business decision on their part, as it instantly eliminates any dispute that might be filed by the consumer.

If their deletion did not occur based on failure to have provided verification in response to a dispute, their are no special prohibitions against a new debt collector reporting.