topic Re: Not paying collections? in Rebuilding Your Credit

Not paying collections?

CrimsonMoon93 — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:25:59 GMT

Hello!

I'd like some additional input and advice. A few people I've spoken with said to not pay my collections accounts because the original creditor sold my account therefore eliminating our contract for repayment and just wait for it to fall off. I was told to make sure these collection agencies are not subsidiaries of the original creditor. If you search my post history you can see how much I owe, less than 10k, and the length of time since it was opened.

Please ask questions for better understanding.

Re: Not paying collections?

OmarGB9 — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:37:03 GMT

That's the worst advice I've ever heard and completely untrue. Just because they sold the debt, it doesn't absolve you from repayment. Not to mention if you're still within SOL, they can sue you for the full balance plus legal fees.

Also it's more helpful if you list all pertinent details in your initial post, rather than forcing people to have to go dig through your post history.

Re: Not paying collections?

RSX — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:38:51 GMT

you could wait for them to fall off - but i would expect your scores to stay the same as they are know until that happens

have a collection with a $0 balance will begin to help your scores

list the CO companies - we can let you know if they PFD

either way, contact each of them for a settlement amount - it my not be as high as your current outstanding amount and you can get them paid off

Re: Not paying collections?

CrimsonMoon93 — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:42:12 GMT

Of course, I don't think the amounts or lengths really matter here so I just said it's available in previous posts. If anyone wants to know that it's there.

Re: Not paying collections?

RSX — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:45:17 GMT

the answer to your question in this thread is - the advice you received to NOT pay them off is incorrect

you need to pay down your CO's to zero, and possibly have them Deleted, so that you can begin to improve your scores

Re: Not paying collections?

CrimsonMoon93 — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:46:53 GMT

Just needed revalidated lol. I thought they were crazy, just didn't make sense.

Re: Not paying collections?

OmarGB9 — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 20:16:39 GMT

@CrimsonMoon93 wrote:
Of course, I don't think the amounts or lengths really matter here so I just said it's available in previous posts. If anyone wants to know that it's there.

Amounts maybe not so much, but lengths do because that'll determine whether you're still within SOL and whether they'll accept a lower amount than the full balance. For example, if the collection/charge off is only a couple of years old, the most you could get discounted is maybe 20-30% off the original balance, whereas if it's nearing the end of SOL/credit reporting period, you may be able to get a huge discount and settle for as low as 30% of the original amount.

Re: Not paying collections?

Jnbmom — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 20:27:57 GMT

@CrimsonMoon93 wrote:
Of course, I don't think the amounts or lengths really matter here so I just said it's available in previous posts. If anyone wants to know that it's there.

As @OmarGB9 mentioned just list them here in this post so we may be able to assist more, nobody really wants or should have to dig through older posts.

The help is here we just need details.

Re: Not paying collections?

tricie17 — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 20:48:48 GMT

An original creditor will sell this debt leaving for a removal from your credit report however if and when it is sold the account will reappear with the company that bought it. The debt will be reported monthly leaving a bad report. In other words, you still need to pay it off. Companys will wait up to the day of sol and sue.

Re: Not paying collections?

RobertEG — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 22:07:08 GMT

If an original creditor sells the debt, that does NOT require removal of the OC account from your credit report.

The only time that sale of a delinquent debt to another leads to removal from your credit report is if the selling party is a debt collector, and not the OC. The CRAs only permit one collection from continuing to report on the same debt, so sale by a debt collector requires, under standard CRA reporting manual policy, deletion by the first debt collector of the now-terminated collection.

Re: Not paying collections?

CrimsonMoon93 — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 01:32:21 GMT

Here's the info @OmarGB9 :

Collections:

National Credit Systems, 9/20/16= $7013 apartment lease

Calvary Portfolio Services, 5/19/18 = $2629 Amazon CC; current balance $1176 with a payment plan and $500 off the original amount

Enhanced Recovery Services, 12/31/19 = $1276 Sprint

Debt:

Capital One = $3458; $1365

Chase = $1632

Neither of these is reported to be in collections and are just charged off on my credit report

Re: Not paying collections?

OmarGB9 — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 02:19:17 GMT

@CrimsonMoon93 wrote:
Here's the info @OmarGB9 :

Collections:
National Credit Systems, 9/20/16= $7013 apartment lease
Calvary Portfolio Services, 5/19/18 = $2629 Amazon CC; current balance $1176 with a payment plan and $500 off the original amount
Enhanced Recovery Services, 12/31/19 = $1276 Sprint

Debt:
Capital One = $3458; $1365
Chase = $1632
Neither of these is reported to be in collections and are just charged off on my credit report

So, paying the chargeoffs that haven't been sold off to collections should probably be one of your first moves for a couple of reasons:

1. You eliminate the possibility of them selling to a CA, resulting in a double-whammy on your report of both a CO and a CA.

2. You eliminate revolving debt that is skewing your credit utilization and thus costing you points.

At the same time, I know for sure Calvary does pay for delete, so it's good that it's already in a payment plan. For the ERS collection, you could try contacting Sprint (well, T-Mobile now) and asking them to recall the debt and work out a payment plan with them directly. For the $7k National Credit Systems collection, according to this list, unfortunately they probably won't delete.

That said, they should still get paid/settled ASAP, if only to avoid getting sued for the full amount.

Re: Not paying collections?

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 17:09:54 GMT

@CrimsonMoon93 wrote:
Hello!

I'd like some additional input and advice. A few people I've spoken with said to not pay my collections accounts because the original creditor sold my account therefore eliminating our contract for repayment and just wait for it to fall off. I was told to make sure these collection agencies are not subsidiaries of the original creditor. If you search my post history you can see how much I owe, less than 10k, and the length of time since it was opened.

Please ask questions for better understanding.

This didn't post and I just found it, lol.

@CrimsonMoon93 you misunderstand how this works. The original creditor typically has their own tradeline unless it's an electric company or a phone company or something of that sort.

Once they charge off the account, they may use in-house collections which is a first party debt collector or they may assign or sell it to a third-party debt collector, who enters their own independent and separate collection tradeline.

Both the OC and the debt collector tradeline must both be excluded at 7 1/2 years from the DOFD. So if you're close to that, maybe you don't wanna pay it, but whether you're still in the SOL for litigation is another question as well.

as noted above paying a charge off can affect your score whereas collection won't unless you have it totally removed from your report.