Whom to pay?

[Anonymous]

Hey all,

Long story short, i ended up running from a small balance with a electricity company back in 2013 during hard times. They sold to a collection agency "PENN CREDIT" and very recently started reporting.

However, i've come to realize that i can still login to the utiltity companys website and make a payment in full for the small balance. Should i pay the company, or the collection agency?

[rmduhon]

If it was sold then pay the CA. If the CA was just assigned collection authority then you can pay the OC

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey all,

Long story short, i ended up running from a small balance with a electricity company back in 2013 during hard times. They sold to a collection agency "PENN CREDIT" and very recently started reporting.

However, i've come to realize that i can still login to the utiltity companys website and make a payment in full for the small balance. Should i pay the company, or the collection agency?

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Contact OC and tell them you plan to pay it online. Find out if the payment is being forward to the CA, or if they can recall it from the the CA in return for direct payment.

[RobertEG]

I would first suggest the direct route of contacting the debt collector and offering a pay for deletion.

If they accept, you then have direct commitment from the only party that can agree to deletion of their own reporting.

Paying via the creditor is an around-the-barn approach that depends first upon the OC agreeing to take payment, and second, actually terminating the assigned collection prior to accepting payment.

And, of course, if the OC has actually sold the deb to the debt collector, then the OC cannot accept payment, period.