I wish I can have some success with this company. When I first moved out of my apartment in 2012; I broke my lease for a better deal; the apartment complex told me they automatically forwarded accounts for non tentants to their collection agency, even though you are not in collections. It was IQ data. The balance was fairly high, a little over 1K and I knew I could not pay it immediately. I tried unsuccessfully from 02/12 to 03/13 to establish a payment arrangement to prevent it from appearing on my credit file. Each and every time I was told no and not to worry because it had not hit my credit. I even asked if I could just mail payments, my dad who is a CPA advised me to that. He said no creditor in their right mind would return money and their cashing the check would be acceptance of a payment plan on my terms. I was told by IQ Data it was not permitted and they were not responsible for any lost or misdirected payments. At the time my credit score was decent-I had just purchased a new truck- and I am not sure if they could see it or not but they continued to make mention of it and how I could take out a personal loan to pay it off. I tried explaining to them I did not want to take out a loan but would rather establish arrangements. After they saw I wasn't going to pony up the money they began to harrass me on the phone, accuse me of theft and even threaten to have my husbands security clearance revoked (we were military at that time). It got so bad I had to ignore the calls...I was already dealing with medical issues and I couldn't take the added stress. After about 2 months the calls stopped and I never heard from them again. I didnt see them on my credit or anything.
Fast forward to November 2014. I went to apply for a mortgage loan and low and behold who pops? IQ Data and for almost double the original amount. I immediately called them and it was the same old game. They had just reported to credit, no they would not make payment arrangements, and most shockingly but I could not have a copy of the invoice explaining where the extra almost $1500 came from. Since then I have been yelled at, hung up on, called a thief many times and told I was not a good person. Last week I tried again and the same thing but the lady was actually nice and told me that while they dont make payment arrangements I could go ahead and just mail in payments at my convenience and it would be applied to my account. She even gave me my account number. Just for grins and giggles I tried to see if I could get that invoice again today but no luck. Are they allowed to just place an amount on your credit file and NEVER give you anything to explain the charges or show as valid? Aside from my auto loan that is the only thing I am dealing with on my credit. I feel my score would increase a little if I could get rid of them. I just opened 2 secured cards last week. I want to start completely fresh but this is like a dark cloud over my head.
No score updates for 6 months is the plan while I garden
Since they agreed in email to delete, if they were to fail to do so you would file a BBB complaint against them for shoddy business practices, you could also sue them for breech of contract as this is what you essentially have
