Help!! Parking tickets letter

[Anonymous]

Professional account management llc sent me a letter from parking tickets from 2013! Can this go on my credit report? Letter says this is an attempt to collect a debt. I have worked so hard since June with scores of 520 and now they are 670 this will be very hurtful on my progress on repairing my credit. Total parking tickets amount is $700 can I make payment plan with them to avoid credit reporting or they just simply trying to collect and not report? What to do

[tufa4311]

From what I have read, yes, they can go on your credit report. It's not the parking ticket per se that's the problem - the problem is that you didn't pay it and the city most likely sent it to a collection agency. The debt is yours, the collection agency was sold the rights to collect on that debt and are reporting that collection to FICO.

Read up a little:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/sc-cons-1016-started-20141015-story.html

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Nine-San-Diego-Parking-Tickets-on-CR/td-p/449...

An example from L.A. DOT:

http://www.ladot.lacity.org/what-we-do/parking/parking-tickets

Credit bureau 
Your delinquent unpaid tickets may be reported to credit bureaus.  This may negatively affect your ability to secure future loans or financing, or may increase the interest rate you pay.

In terms of what to do - treat it like any other unpaid debt. Find out who owns the debt (the city in this case), request that they pull the debt from collections in return for payment, if the collection agency owns it request a PFD (pay for delete)...ect, ect

[Anonymous]

Don't I have 30 days before it gets reported to CR?

[tufa4311]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Don't I have 30 days before it gets reported to CR?

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odd question to ask - the ticket is 3 years old...

I would get started on the process of cleaing it up. Two options I know of: DV (debt validation) and PFD (pay for delete). If you aren't sure the ticket is yours request a DV. If it is yours and you'd rather stay above board request a PFD - they may only agree to it verbally but that should be ok. Do a search for PFD and/or DV to get how to's on it.

[Anonymous]

It's not on my CR I just got the letter showing a balance of tickets. My question is now can I just pay this off to them before they report it if they even do report it? The tickets are all from 2011-14.

[tufa4311]

Double check the correspondence - does it say anything about when they may send it to collections or next actions?

Next, the best thing to do is simply call them and ask - "Hi, I got your bills, I am willing to pay them, are they going to be sent to collections, are you going to report the lates to my credit report?"

If they say they will not report it to your CR if you pay it off you have two options: you take them at their word and just pay it off or you send a letter to confirm. Originally I mentioned a PFD in this reply - but since they have not reported it there is nothing to delete.

In the end, if it's not on your CR you are lucky as they are old - get this taken care of ASAP using one of the two methods above. If it was me, I would check my CR, I'd ask if they are going to report it, if they said no, I just pay it right there over the phone, but that's just me. Others like to get written confirmation, which is a great thing to have, but they may not agree.

[Anonymous]

Letter does not mention anything about reporting to CR.

[tufa4311]

Ok, then follow through with the rest of my points.

[RobertEG]

No, they cannot be shown in your credit report.   Collections of parking tickets is excluded from credit reports.

The Jan, 2015 agreement between the CRAs and the office of the AGs of several states explictly includes the provision that the CRAs will not include, and remove if already reported, collection on debts, such as parking tickets, which did not result from any contract agreement with the consumer.

Simply send a request to the CRA for removal of the collection per their current policy agreement.

[Anonymous]

RobertEG thanks on clarifying that it was literally driving me insane. Do you know if Rhode Island is one of them states that prohibits any parking tickets? As of right now there is nothing reported to the CR