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Disputing/removing old medical collection

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Anonymous
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Disputing/removing old medical collection

Hello everyone,

 

Hopefully someone can clarify something for me. I have two unpaid medical collections reporting for hospital services that were perfromed in June of 2009.  They went to collections in the fall of 2009 and were ultimately bounced to a second collection agency in November of 2010.  My question is: can I dispute and request the CBs to remove these since the original date of service, and original date of collection is now 8 years old, or is the date of "re-assignment" to the later collection agency in November of 2010 what they will key the 7 or 7 1/2 year clock off of?   

 

Edit: I've read that it's bad to contact a collection agency on old dormant accounts and that doing so could restart the collection clock. Does this apply to disputes directly with the Credit Bureaus? If I file a dispute to try to get them removed and fail will it reset the clock?

 

These are the only bads I have reporting and would love to see them disappear..

 

Thanks!

Message 1 of 5
4 REPLIES 4
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Disputing/removing old medical collection

I believe that whenever it goes to a new CA the clock resets.  You could always try the HIPPA method.  I havent' done that yet, but am planning on doing so in the coming weeks.

Message 2 of 5
RobertEG
Legendary Contributor

Re: Disputing/removing old medical collection

Collections are excluded, regardless of paid or umpaid, and regardless of when reported or how many times they have been reported, based ONLY on teh reported DOFD.

More specificallly, any and all collections reported on a debt must become excluded no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the DOFD.

There is no "reset" of the credit report exclusion date based on second or subsequent reporting of a collection.

See FCRA 605(c).

 

Exclusion is thus the responsibility of the CRA, not the debt collector.

The debt collector involvment is only in the reporting of the DOFD to the CRA, which they are required to do no later than 90 days after reporting of their collection.  FCRA 623(a)(5).

If the debt collector has reported the correct DOFD and the CRA has failed to exclude the associated collection no later than 7 years plus 180 days after the reported DOFD, then the CRA is clearly in violation of FCRA 605(c).

That is rarely a problem, as the CRAs are good about excluding if the facts are clear, and normally does not require a formal dispute to correct.  It is a factual matter that can be addressed simply by contacting the CRA and advising of the lack of credit report exclusion of the collection.  If they dont exclude in a reasonable time, then a complaint with the CFPB for clear lack of  compliance with FCRA 605(c) would be warranted.

Message 3 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Disputing/removing old medical collection

Thanks for the detailed answer! So the original file dates with the original debt collectors are now over 7 1/2 years old and I should contact the CRAs about this..

 

Should I write formal letters to the 3 CRAs or do an online dispute?

Message 4 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Disputing/removing old medical collection

Update:

 

I disputed the collection accounts with TU on 5/24 and woke up this morning to an email letting me know that they have removed the collections-) Happy Friday to me!

 

Now I'm hoping that EQ and EX follow suit..

 

Added: Just pulled my own TU and it's clean as a whistle! I've stared at those medical collections for years wishing they would go away. I can't describe how good it feels..

Message 5 of 5
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