I found out just how important it is to get a copy of all 3 of your credit reports. It turns out that my Transunion report shwed 8 collections my others showed 5. 1 was a sprint account that I never had. It is being disputed now. A second collection was 1 that was included in a bankruptcy in '03 so it should be dropping soon. The last was a dish network account that I am disputing. The good news is that I got 4 removed by dealing directly with the OC which was a hospital. They initially did not want to drop them off of my credit report but I was polite and spoke with the director of finance 2 days ago. He said he would think about it and call me back on yesterday. He said he would call me back later that day or the next. After that I figured I would go ahead and show some faith. Before getting his response I went into the billing department and paid on the accounts. They gave me a 25% discount for paying. I called him and told him that I paid the bills and he said that he had not gotten an opportunity to speak with his partners. I called the next day and got his voice mail. I left a message saying that I was hoping to hear from him but maybe he was just waiting for the check to clear so I would call back when it cleared my account. This morning I got a call from someone in his office stating that they were removing the 4 accounts from my credit report and that I could come in and get a copy of the confirmation letter from them. I got it and is states that the collection agency is removing the 4 accounts from all 3 of my credit reports. I think the key to my success was going in personally, not accepting no for an answer, showing some good faith by actually paying what was owed (I didn't even ask for the discount the woman just offered it to me.), being personable in person (I joked with the office personnel even though they are the ones that said "even if you pay they are not going to remove it from your report"), I told everyone I spoke to how important paying my bills was to me and showed them that I had always paid eveything else with them and never had an issue before that I was just not aware of these bills. Letters are a great strategy and I would not deal with collection agencies directly. I will always deal with the OC first. I had a medical collection at another hospital and when I went to discuss it with them it turned out that my insurance had just made the payment on that day. Talk about lucky, this was a bill from '06. Had I gone in a day earlier or simply used a PFD with the collection agency I would have paid for a bill that was paid by the insurance. God is truly on my side. Do the right thing and good things will come your way. Good luck to all.
