Old account issue

[sayantan1979]

Hi

I used to have a Bank of America credit card when I was a student back in 2007. Once, when BofA was offering a 1 year free subscription for Mcafee antivirus, I went ahead and opted for it. Meanwhile, I had to go back to India, and didn't know that the Antivirus account was on auto-renewal mode.

When I was back in India, I didn't receive any information on the amount that they debited from my card, as the old e-mail address was the university one, and the phone numbers also had changed. Much later, one fine morning, when I thought of checking if the account was still alive, I realized that the auto-renewal had costed me $45, and it was overdue for a long time. I didn't even think of the account as I was happy assuming that since I didn't spend anything on the card, it was not required to check the status.

Now that I am back in US on employment, I am finding it difficult to get approval for any credit cards. Even my apartment forced to me to add a friend of mine as a joint applicant. I can't believe that those 45 dollars are costing me this much. I didn't want to cheat anybody, and now also, I am ready to pay off the amount that I owed to BofA. Can you please suggest what can I do to get rid of this mess?

Thanks

Sayantan Das

[guiness56]

Is BoA the one reporting or is there also a CA reporting?

Is it a credit card that has been charged off?

[sayantan1979]

Recently, I checked my Experian credit report. What they say is that the account had been charged off, and BoA passed it on to a collection agency named Trident Asset Management. The status shows as - "Collection Amount. $49 past due as of Mar 2013".

[DaBears]

If in fact you know the debt is yours I would call the OC and ask if they still own it and if they do ask them to pull back the collection and offer a PFD. 

[sayantan1979]

Thanks for your suggestion DaBears. Last time when I was in US, I was a student, and never had to be concerned about this. This time, I arrived just a couple of weeks back. So, I am completely new to this. Can you please elaborate what you meant? I mean, I couldn't understand the abbreviations. Sorry for my ignorance.

And yes, I know that the debt was mine. It was my stupidity not to check the Mcafee account for auto-renewal when I went for it.

[DaBears]

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@sayantan1979 wrote:

Thanks for your suggestion DaBears. Last time when I was in US, I was a student, and never had to be concerned about this. This time, I arrived just a couple of weeks back. So, I am completely new to this. Can you please elaborate what you meant? I mean, I couldn't understand the abbreviations. Sorry for my ignorance.

And yes, I know that the debt was mine. It was my stupidity not to check the Mcafee account for auto-renewal when I went for it.

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No worries, no need to apologize. PFD is Pay For Delete. You can call BOA and ask if they still own the account. If they do, ask if they will do a PFD. If they don't own the account and they are reporting a $0 balance that means they sold the account to a collection agency and thats who you will need to deal with. 

[sayantan1979]

Well, in my "Potential Negative Items" section, Bank of America status shows as - "Account charged off. $45 written off. $44 past due as of Aug 2012". But what is confusing is the Status Details part of it, which says, "This account is scheduled to continue on record until Dec 2018". The creditor's statement reads, "Account closed at Credit grantor's request".

For the collection account, the status details says, "This account is scheduled to continue on record until Jun 2013".

What I read about the collection agencies is that they can get abusive on PFD offers. Any suggestions on how to handle that?

[DaBears]

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@sayantan1979 wrote:

Well, in my "Potential Negative Items" section, Bank of America status shows as - "Account charged off. $45 written off. $44 past due as of Aug 2012". But what is confusing is the Status Details part of it, which says, "This account is scheduled to continue on record until Dec 2018". The creditor's statement reads, "Account closed at Credit grantor's request".

For the collection account, the status details says, "This account is scheduled to continue on record until Jun 2013".

What I read about the collection agencies is that they can get abusive on PFD offers. Any suggestions on how to handle that?

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Where did you pull your credit report from?

[sayantan1979]

www.annualcreditreport.com

Somehow, TransUnion and Equifax didn't let me pull the report from there. But I got the Experian report.

[guiness56]

Well something isn't right.  They both should come off around the same time.  That is a 5 year difference.