topic Re: Paid Collections in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Paid Collections

Anonymous — Sat, 05 May 2007 13:54:54 GMT

I am paying off my collections but this has not improved my score. Is there any way the collector can remove the item once it's paid off. This is really hurting my credit I want to buy a home but I don't want to wait 7 years for the collections that are paid to fall off my credit. Any one have any suggestions?

Re: Paid Collections

Tuscani — Sat, 05 May 2007 14:10:21 GMT

evangelista_1999 wrote:
I am paying off my collections but this has not improved my score. Is there any way the collector can remove the item once it's paid off. This is really hurting my credit I want to buy a home but I don't want to wait 7 years for the collections that are paid to fall off my credit. Any one have any suggestions?

You should have negotiated a pay for delete. While you do not have as much leverage now that you have paid, you can still ask them to remove the tradelines.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Sun, 06 May 2007 07:06:46 GMT

Once it's paid, like Tuscani said, you lose all leverage and they lose all incentive. What's the DOFD?

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Mon, 07 May 2007 23:37:34 GMT

What is DOFD? I am new to the Credit Score World.

Re: Paid Collections

Tuscani — Mon, 07 May 2007 23:42:14 GMT

Date of first delinquency. Call the CRA and ask them.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Tue, 08 May 2007 05:48:21 GMT

Usually DOFD is the date the account went 120 days late.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:01:57 GMT

Normally I dispute collections and after so long the collectors will not respond, especially if the debt is small and the account will automatically be deleted due to lack of response.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:00:28 GMT

I'm kinda jumping in late on this thread, but I'm a wreck, and so is my credit score. At least I did get on with Suze Ornman plan, it is working great!

I seen Woo's response, and wanted to know what type of letter he wrote to get those collection accounts removed. I have several colllection accounts that were actually medical bill's paid off from a few years ago, and would like to write a GW letter or something like that to the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA's) <-- at least that's what I think the acronym is suppose to be!

Any examples, links, etc, would be most thankful!

Was out of town and didn't know about a payment due on a bank account we had long since closed (it was a line of credit, still paying on it, but never get the notifications from them!), and being late 6 days cost me a drop of 35 points on my Score! HELP!!!! Can a GW letter to the bank get them to forgive this too so I can go back to good status with them as I pay it off?

- TK

Re: Paid Collections

fused — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:25:48 GMT

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=generalcredit&message.id=2661

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:22:04 GMT

Tuscani wrote:

You should have negotiated a pay for delete. While you do not have as much leverage now that you have paid, you can still ask them to remove the tradelines.

Hmm. How does this play out? A phone conversation with them agreeing to a delete, followed by a letter confirming the verbal agreement (check enclosed)?

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:51:13 GMT

smlala wrote:

Hmm. How does this play out? A phone conversation with them agreeing to a delete, followed by a letter confirming the verbal agreement (check enclosed)?

Except the check. Don't pay until you have a signed agreement in hand.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:05:55 GMT

I am working on getting paid collections removed as well. When I call the CA to pay and ask for a PFD they always say they cannot do that. I had a hospital stay over a year ago that was never submitted to my insurance. After I saw my score was distroyed by all the collections I started submitting the bills myself. The insuance company paid but the CA's will not remove from report. I am not sure what to do now.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:16:57 GMT

bizz0976 wrote:
I am working on getting paid collections removed as well. When I call the CA to pay and ask for a PFD they always say they cannot do that. I had a hospital stay over a year ago that was never submitted to my insurance. After I saw my score was distroyed by all the collections I started submitting the bills myself. The insuance company paid but the CA's will not remove from report. I am not sure what to do now.

Dispute it with the CRAs. When a provider fails to submit to insurance, there's nothing you can do to make them. You can call and prevail upon them, but they have to do it. If it was in-network, then they are contractually bound to submit it. Sometimes if they don't submit within a certain window, the provider has to eat it. I would contact your insurance company and ask them to send you anything about the claims submitted. Dates submitted, dates of service, providers name, amounts, insured name, patient name. Pick insurance' brain about it. Ask them what the provider is contractually bound to do, presuming it's in-network.

Read this. And do some searching about medical collections here.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=generalcredit&message.id=26717

Feel free to PM me.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:48:48 GMT

Thanks so much for the info. I know the hospital has a timely filing deadline of one year, I used to work for a health insurance co. If they do not file within that time the claim has to be written off. In my case the hospital states they did not have my ins info (even though the ins co has a record of the hospitals call on the day I was brought in). I called the CA and asked for the claim to be sent to me so I can submit it to the ins co. I have a contact there and know my claim will be processed. The CA refused to send me the claim and refered me back to the hospital who states they can't give me the claim either.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:34:27 GMT

Insurance companies can be incredibly difficult to work with, but down in the bowels working the phones are people who will sometimes traverse Heck and back to help you.

The key to getting someone to help you, whether they want to or not, is to appear lost and in need of help. People feel empowered when you ask them for help, and they will sometimes let down their guard and provide lots more help than they normally would. Best way to do this is make a declarative statement when you call.

"Hi, umm, ah, I'm not sure about something, and, er, I need some help. I'm kinda lost and looking for some information."

They will often go on the offensive and take the lead asking you the key questions that helps them find the info to do their job more quickly. They like that. IT systems are sometimes organized in a haphazard manner, so don't be put off by the order of questions they ask you or by the information they request from you.

Don't be accusatory. You want to appear unsure so they will make definitive statements and provide clear info. If you stumble into insurance company rules, and the insurance company rep offers to help you by calling the provider, the CA or both, accept their help.

You might have to go in to work late, or leave early, and you'll wanna block out some time to talk.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:16:31 GMT

bizz096-

I was in a similar situation a number of years ago where the hospital never did send me any bills (itemized or otherwise) and a year or so after the fact the total bill was sent to collections. Because it had been sent to collections, the hospital refused to talk to me. Because I didn't have an itemized bill, I couldn't submit it to my insurance company.

If you talk to anyone at either institution, be exceptionally diligent in recording every little thing about the conversation: name of the person you talked to, date, time, a confirmation/claim/record number, proposed plan of action and expected date of completion. I'd suggest getting a notebook and creating a log. You'll need it. Insurance companies have magical ways of saying theyre going to do something and then just completely losing any of the conversation.

What I ended up doing was writing an official letter to the hospital, insurance company, and collections (one letter, CCd to all three), stating something to the extent of the following: "I acknowledge this bill on such and such a date, and I will glad pay it if I am provided with the detailed itemization." Everytime I received a new letter stating that I owed the monies, I re-sent my original letter + their letter + a new letter stating the number of times I had asked for an itemization. So on and so forth. I never received an itemized statement, but to the best of my knowledge it never actually ended up on my credit report.

The exact same type of scenario happened two other times with two separate phone bills. I had roommates and needed to get the bill to separate out the long-distance charges. I repeated the above scenario, and neither ended up on my report. In one of these cases, I did finally get a very apologetic manager who actually telephoned me (almost 2 years after I started writing the letters) and ended up resolving the issue. She was very nice and hoped I would remain their customer. Hmm. Sorry lady, I went cellular.

Good luck.

Message Edited by smlala on 09-07-2007 08:16 PM

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:20:42 GMT

thanks so much for all the info...I will be spending the rest of the day trying to clean this mess up. Wish me luck.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:14:58 GMT

oops wrong post, sorry

Message Edited by Lori344 on 09-12-2007 11:14 AM

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:16:15 GMT

Shadowcat wrote:
I'm kinda jumping in late on this thread, but I'm a wreck, and so is my credit score. At least I did get on with Suze Ornman plan, it is working great!

I seen Woo's response, and wanted to know what type of letter he wrote to get those collection accounts removed. I have several colllection accounts that were actually medical bill's paid off from a few years ago, and would like to write a GW letter or something like that to the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA's) <-- at least that's what I think the acronym is suppose to be!

Any examples, links, etc, would be most thankful!

Was out of town and didn't know about a payment due on a bank account we had long since closed (it was a line of credit, still paying on it, but never get the notifications from them!), and being late 6 days cost me a drop of 35 points on my Score! HELP!!!! Can a GW letter to the bank get them to forgive this too so I can go back to good status with them as I pay it off?

- TK

There's no way being 6 days late dropped your score. There's simply nowhere in the matrix for that - the first point a payment is "late" is at 30 days. Unless your creditor reported it as 30 days late when it was really 6, or you mean that it was 6 days past 30 days late.

Re: Paid Collections

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:07:41 GMT

Shadowcat wrote:
I'm kinda jumping in late on this thread, but I'm a wreck, and so is my credit score. At least I did get on with Suze Ornman plan, it is working great!

I seen Woo's response, and wanted to know what type of letter he wrote to get those collection accounts removed. I have several colllection accounts that were actually medical bill's paid off from a few years ago, and would like to write a GW letter or something like that to the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA's) <-- at least that's what I think the acronym is suppose to be!

Any examples, links, etc, would be most thankful!

------------------------------------------------

YOUR NAME
YOUR ADDRESS

DATE

NAME OF CREDITOR
RE: Acct #
ADDRESS

Dear CREDITOR,

I have been an company name customer since 200X and during that time, I have enjoyed my experience with company name greatly. I am writing to see if you would be willing to make a "goodwill" adjustment to your reporting to the three credit agencies. I have two a late payments on the above referenced account that date back to 2003 and 2004. Since that time I have been an exceptional customer paying every month on time.

Because of my exceptional payment history over the last 4 years, I would like you to consider removing the negative payments from my credit report. At the time of the late payments, I was in the process of moving. I say that not to justify why the payments were late, but rather to show that the late payments are not a good indicator of my actual credit worthiness. I hope that Orchard Bank is willing to work with me on erasing this mark from my credit reports.

I have been a very happy customer in the past and hope to continue a long relationship with company name. With today’s credit industry so competitive, I know how important it is to maintain good relationships with customers. COMPANY NAME has been exceptional in my book so far and I highly recommend it to all my friends and relatives. I hope that you will deeply consider my request and prove once again, why company name is heads above the rest. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME

Message Edited by Lori344 on 09-12-2007 12:07 PM