Open Collection Account

[drewrico]

Hi Everybdy, just looking for a little advice at this point.

I had perfect credit until I was incarcerated and the bill for my housing went into collections. Right now its at about 2,000 dollars but my question is should i just pay on it monthly and until its paid off or should i pay it completely off now?

My other question being once its paid off will it come off my credit report or will I have to have it taken off? I read somewhere it takes 3 years to have a paid collection come off your report.

Im just impatient, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

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@drewrico wrote:

Hi Everybdy, just looking for a little advice at this point.

I had perfect credit until I was incarcerated and the bill for my housing went into collections. Right now its at about 2,000 dollars but my question is should i just pay on it monthly and until its paid off or should i pay it completely off now?

My other question being once its paid off will it come off my credit report or will I have to have it taken off? I read somewhere it takes 3 years to have a paid collection come off your report.

Im just impatient, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Better to pay it off sooner rather than make payments. Ideally you want to negotiate a pay for deletion (PFD) of the reports, but thats not always possible to get.  Paying it off will get it updated to $0 balance and stop any monthly updates of the reports.

[Anonymous]

I second that, if they agree to delete, get it in writing befire you pay

[RobertEG]

The FCRA requires exclusion of a collection, regardless of whether it is paid or unpaid, no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the date you first became delinquent on the account with the original creditor (DOFD).  The CRAs typically do the exclusion at 7 years.

You can request the debt collector to delete the reported collection as a condition for its payment, but such pay for delete (PFD) agreements are totally voluntary on their part.

CRA policy is that collections are NOT to be deleted based on payment of the debt.

There is no three-year exclusion period for a collection.

The only exception is that under NY state law, if you pay the collection, it becomes excluded at 5 years.

[Anonymous]

The answer is....it depends. Horrible, right?

If it's been sold to a Collection Agency (CA), you can try and work out paying a lesser amount, as they likely bought it for pennies on the dollar. But a collection account on your credit is a collection account, paid or not. Try and work out a deal where you'll pay if they agree to remove the trade line (TL). If you pay anything, I'd pay it all at once, and not deal with monthly payments.

As for the time it will be on your credit report, it will be there for 7 years from the time you initially defaulted - unless you can get them to agree to remove it.

[gdtobefree]

When you were incarcerated what was the balance you owed? 

Were there any fees or interested added to what you owed?

Is the amount they are saying ocrrect? 

If all is correct I would offer them a one time payment in return for the deletion of the account from your reports.  GET IT IN WRITING that they will delete the account and not turn around and sell it to anyone else. 

[RobertEG]

The governing statutory provision for all debt collectors is FDCPA 808(1), which states that it is a violation for a debt collector to attempt to collect any amount above the pricipal of the credit unless it is specifically authorized in the agreement that created the debt or is authorized by law.

What was explicity authorized in your rental contract?

[gdtobefree]

Yeah basically what I said just in layman terms LOL