Can an Angry Creditor (Medical Provider) Post Late Payment AFTER the balance has been Paid

[Anonymous]

Ok so here is the situation. I have a physical therapist named Jane. My relationship with Jane has completely detoriated and I am planning to post a negative review on Yelp documenting my experience. Based on my knowledge of this person I anticipate she will do everything in her power to retaliate against me so I want to do my homework before I go public with my Yelp review. 

Background info:

Jane is the owner/manager of her own physical therapy practice - lets call the practice ABC. Melissa was a physical therapist at ABC - Jane was her boss (and Jane was the lead physical therapist). I saw Melissa once a week for approximately one year and spent $10,000 out of pocket (ABC practice does not accept insurance so I was required to pay out of pocket). 

One day Melissa informed me that she was leaving ABC practice and I was welcome to start seeing her at her new practice down the street. Jane aggressively pursued me to stay with ABC and said she's been concerned about my case for months and that Melissa is totally clueless. She even said that Melissa's techniques were making my issue even worse. 

I was quite frustrated to hear this and questioned why she was only telling me this when it was looking like ABC was going to lose me as a patient.  One of the ways I reacted was to say well if that's the case then I think I am due at least a partial refund for the $10,000 that you're telling me I just wasted at your practice. Jane refused and basically said I can't do that but if you start seeing me I think I can have your problem fixed within six months. 

I foolishly agreed and saw her for the next 18 months...my problem still isn't fixed. 

Anyways here is where the credit related portion of this comes in:

Around March 2017 Jane began sending me emails stating that I hadn't paid for a number of visits scattered across the past 2.5 years. Some of the claims in question I was able to verify that she was correct and I paid her in full for those visits. Two of the claims dating back to 2015 (when I was seeing Melissa) I believed had been paid but I no longer had any records because the credit card used was closed quite a long time ago.

Jane acknowledged that her payments system (Square) is not perfect and there have been instances where someone paid but it didn't show in her books. So I basically said look, I am quite confident I've already paid for these claims and I don't think its fair or realistic for you to demand that I furnish proof of payment for something that happened 2.5 years ago. Beyond that I've spent $20,000 over the past 2.5 years with your practice ($10,000 of which you even acknowledged was totally wasted) so I don't think it's fair for you to be nickel and diming me like this over $400 that I don't think I even owe you in the first place. 

We went back and forth and she was not willing to budge an inch. She recently threatened to report me to collections if I didn't pay so I just gave her the money because it is not worth ruining my stellar credit score over $400.

During our back and forth she would make statements like "This bill is two years overdue! this is your last chance!" This is a ridiculous statement because she never even mentioned these "missing payments" to me until the Spring of 2017. But since she first asked for payment of the 2015 bills in Spring of 2017 it has been 6-8 months since she first made me aware of them. 

So at this point I have paid every single penny that she has asked me for and the account is zeroed out. What I need to know is if I go and blast her on Yelp, could she try to retaliate by retroactively reporting my so-called "late payments" to credit reporting agencies?

Are there any other ways that she could try to ruin my credit?

[RobertEG]

There is no time limitation under the FCRA for a creditor to report lates to your credit file.

Thus, the answer is yes, she can report lates at any time.

Small creditors often do not have credit reporting agreements with the CRAs.  A party cannot just report information to a CRA; they must qualify for a credit reporting agreement, and it costs them time and money to do so.  I also believe that at least one CRA only enters into reporting agreements with creditors who have a minimum number of accounts, so she may not qualify.

Assuming she did obtain a credit reporting agreement and did report, you could file a dispute of the accuracy of her reporting.

If she verifies the accuracy, then the CRA will likely verify in their finding.

While you cannot bring your own private civil action for inaccurate reporting per se due to the bar against private civil actions set forth under FCRA 623(c), you can base a civl action on lack of a reasonable investigation of your dispute, which then becomes reviewable by the courts.

Ultimately, the outcome will then be determined by which side provides a proponderance of evidecne to the court supporting their claim that there were prior delinquencies.

[Anonymous]

Hi Robert, thanks very much for your detailed response. 

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@RobertEG wrote:

There is no time limitation under the FCRA for a creditor to report lates to your credit file.

Thus, the answer is yes, she can report lates at any time.

So given the fact that we were debating the accuracy/legitimacy for the bills in question how exactly is the 'late payment' clock calculated. She first asked for payment on 3/17/17...but we then spent the next six months going back and forth on whether I truly owed this money. Part of this six month process is that the amount I owed was constantly changing due to her inaccurate book keeping (for example lets say she initially told me I owed 200+200+300 so a total of 700...but then I'd send her a payment for $400 and she'd say your remaining balance is now $375 and I'd challenge her since that makes zero sense) Is the late payment clock ticking this entire time?

Small creditors often do not have credit reporting agreements with the CRAs.  A party cannot just report information to a CRA; they must qualify for a credit reporting agreement, and it costs them time and money to do so.  I also believe that at least one CRA only enters into reporting agreements with creditors who have a minimum number of accounts, so she may not qualify.

Do you have any idea what the minimum number of accounts would be for the above referenced CRA to enter into an agreement?

Would there be any way for me to find out whether or not she has an existing agreement with any of the CRA's?

Assuming she did obtain a credit reporting agreement and did report, you could file a dispute of the accuracy of her reporting.

If she verifies the accuracy, then the CRA will likely verify in their finding.

While you cannot bring your own private civil action for inaccurate reporting per se due to the bar against private civil actions set forth under FCRA 623(c), you can base a civl action on lack of a reasonable investigation of your dispute, which then becomes reviewable by the courts.

Ultimately, the outcome will then be determined by which side provides a proponderance of evidecne to the court supporting their claim that there were prior delinquencies.

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[Appleman]

This is one of those cases where you really need to decide what you want and if it is worth it to risk a credit issue being reported.

This may be one of those times where you walk away from the situation and never turn back. You are obviously having an argument with a poor business person who has put profit ahead of what is best for the patient.

I have a feeling you have already spent too much time and energy on this person. Sometimes just word of mouth will get the word out without putting your words in print on yelp.

As you have forseen the potential issues if you Yelp, maybe a consultation with a lawyer would be advisable.

And, I hope your issue is getting better.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@RobertEG wrote:

There is no time limitation under the FCRA for a creditor to report lates to your credit file.

Thus, the answer is yes, she can report lates at any time.

So given the fact that we were debating the accuracy/legitimacy for the bills in question how exactly is the 'late payment' clock calculated. She first asked for payment on 3/17/17...

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The date of the late has nothing to do with when she first called you about it.  Based on your original post, you mention that the missed payments stretched back over 2.5 years.  Thus, if a payment was mised in July 2015, then it became 30 days late in August, 60 days late in Sept, etc,   If these late payments were ever reported to credit bureau, they would be dated back in 2015 and 2016, and there might be several of them.

I agree with the last commenter.  You have paid your money, you cannot get it back, you have likely pre-empted any chance she will try to report you for lates, so just let this go.  The desire to pay people out for transgressions (i.e. vengeance) is toxic to you, and I speak here as the chief of sinners.  Let it go.

Should you want to revisit this many years later (when the 7-year clock has completely elapsed) feel free to go Yelping then.