Rain on my parade

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I will try and provide as much information as I can, and if there is anything missing I will make sure to update.

I recently became proactive about checking my credit report and my credit score. My first credit card was from Capital One, and while not an excuse, as a young person I did not take care of it. It went to collections in 2014 after being open for about 3 years. At that time, it was reported on my credit report as an open account, but severely delinquent. At the place I had lived then, I never recieved any collections notice. Now I thought it was peculiar that I never received any collection's notice, and can admit that I never bothered in checking on the status of the account.

Older now, I noticed that the account is still reporting as open on all 3 agencies, with the same label as delinquent. The last time they updated it as late was in 2014, so one of my questions is why is it still being reported as open?

I have moved since then, living in another state and was just made aware of a collection agency, Midland, that now has this account. In the notice it said that they have held the acount since 10/2015. Now I wasn't aware of this account being with Midland throughout this whole time. I did however decide to pay it. I had begun to repair my CR, bringing it from a 521 to a 691 within a couple of months. Score for me!

Now I am aware that just because I paid the account it won't disappear, but at least I know I paid it off. Happiness was in the horizon, I could finally see it.

The very next day my account dropped around 70 points because I had a new collection on my CR. Midland was reporting that I was severely, severely delinquent and owed them money. (Even though I paid it.) The next day it lowered some more, in which is currently at 591 (on Experian). The other two have dropped around 20 points, and show Midland now too.

I guess my ultimate question is how do I go about fixing this? I'm not debating that I owe Capital One. But if it was sent to a collection agency and it showed up on my CR then, I would have paid it off sooner. it is not my fault that they forgot to report it when the should have. This has severely impacted my credit score, and all the hard work I have done has gone to waste. Sorry for the vent.

I just need to know how to go about disputing Midland, and the damage they have done.

Thank you, thank you for taking the time to read this and help.

[Jamgal40]

First off, since the Cap 1 account was sold to Midland, Cap 1 erred in not updating the balance reporting as zero, so you should dispute that with the CRAs. Someone else may be able to assist with Midland, cause I heard they are brutal.

[RobertEG]

If they still had active collection authority at the time you paid the debt, then they can report their collection.

You will have to obtain a good-will deletion to get the entire collection deleted.

You do, however, appear to have basis for getting them to clean up their reporting to show paid, $0 balance.

The debt collector was not requried to begin active collection or send notification to you when they first obtained collection authority.

The decision to wait until contacted by a debt collector before considering payment left you with a debt collector to deal with, and their ability to reprot the fact of their collection authority.  Recourse now is dependence upon their good-will.