Collections Advise?

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:10:09 GMT

Hi everyone,

Hope I'm posting this in the correct place. I have a lottle bit of a situation and really could use some advise.

First, I was without work for a while and unfortunaly had some credit issues, late payments, over limits, etc., but I've been working for over a year now and have paid everything off. I had worked up of 20K in debt when I was working, but I actually sent my last payment today and am now 100% debt free.

My FICO scores were in the lower 500s range as recently as last November. I had a few older dings come off my report and with paying everything down I've raised my FICOs substantually. 693 Transunion & 689 Eqifax as of about a month ago.

Here's my question. I had purchased 2 domain names from a registrar (internet domain seller) a few years ago. These domains are paid for once a year ($8.99), but last June I canceled them and decided not to keep the domains. Yesterday I got 3 collection letters from a collection company. 2 for $8.99 & 1 for $18.99 ($36.97 total). Apparently they did not cancel the domains, plus are charging me an $18.99 collection fee.

I've called the company and asked what the story was. I was told that I need to show proof that these were cancelled and that they were going to report this to all three major credit agencies. Normally I'd never pay something like this that I don't owe, but after working so hard to fix my credit and get out of debt, I'm almost considering just paying it. It really bothers me that this company is doing what amounts to extortion though.

$36.97 is not a lot to pay compared to all the hastle that will come from fight this.

One other bit of info. I've never owned a home, but I've been working hard and hope to buy a place by this coming spring. I think my credit will go up a bit further as I now will have 0% utilization, but I worry that if I don't submit to this false debt, they will ding my credit and it could harm my chances to own a home.

I haven't posted the name of this company because I don't know if that's OK here or not, but the national BBB gives them a grade of "F" and has registered 319 complaint against them in the last 12 months and well over 700 in the last 36 months. There are horror stories all over the internet about this company that i wish I'd seen before I did any business with them.

What should I do? Just pay it, or fight it?

Thank you in advance for all of your suggestions.

Re: Collections Advise?

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:21:08 GMT

I would do the pay for not reporting. I believe there is a letter on this site that states "i am paying however i am not admitting this is my charge.

Further more if you DV, i believe they might need to provide it to you.

I agree principle, but it might be better just to be done.

This is a good question for others aswell.

Re: Collections Advise?

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:24:09 GMT

Thank you Shannon,

I've lurked a lot here, but I'm a still a newbie to this stuff. What does DV mean?

Re: Collections Advise?

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:51:13 GMT

Search Debt Validation and Pay for delete.

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Collections Advise?

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Re: Collections Advise?