How long should I wait

[Anonymous]

Back in Febuary of this I called to pay and old (2013) medical debt that was in collections. I was attempting to make less than full payment when the CA offered me a settlement. I accepted their offer and paid the bill. About a week later I received a letter from them saying " your payment has paid the balance on your account" and also said "PAID IN FULL" at the top. The difference between the settlement and the full balance was $156.60. Last month I had entries show up on all 3 CRA's with a new collection for 156.60 from the same OC, same date of service. To be sure, I called the OC and verified I had on one bill for that date of service. After that I gather up my documentation and sent copies to the new CA. They have told me that they forwarded it on to the OC for review. This week will be 4 weeks since they received my letter/documents. After this week, it the entries are still on my CR, should I send the same documentation to the CRA's ?

[Anonymous]

I would call them again, if they dont give you an answer, than dispute it to the Credit agencies for inaccurate info.

[RonM21]

I'd dispute it also I think

[Anonymous]

From experience, the CA has 30 days from the receipt of your letter to respond or let you know that they need more time if you've contacted them in the first 30 days of receiving their demand notice.  Keep in mind that you may have 3-5 days of mail time from the date you sent the letter and there may be the same amount of time from the date they draft their letter and drop it in the mail to get back.

[RobertEG]

The required reporting on their part is that the debt is paid and the balance is $0.

There is no specific statutory period for them to do so in days or weeks.  The requirment under FCRA 623(a)(2) is that they "promptly" update.

A reasonable interpretation of promptly would be in their next regular reporting cycle, which is monthly.  Four weeks is only approaching that period.

I would give it a few more weeks.

Previous posts have stated similar problems that have occured due to the internal processing with debt collectors.

Some will first forward to their financail department for update, who will record the partial payment and update the new balance.

It then proceeds to another department who then processes the settlement and updates the balance to $0.  While not the best of practices, it appears common.

I would give it a few more weeks before pursuing formal complaint of violation of section 623(a)(2).