You only have legal accounts with an OC, not a debt collector.
Collection "accounts" are credit reporting mechanisms solely between the CA and the CRA.
When you pay a CA, they dont "close" anything. They do two status updates. The first is to update the CA "account" status with the CRA to show paid. The second is to update the balance of debt owed to $0. Neither of these removes the prior reporting of the collection itself from your CR, or from FICO scoring. These reportings are important primarily for a manual review of your CR, to show you have paid, but not for FICO scoring.
Deletion of a CA from your CR is the sole responsibility of the CRAs. The CRA looks at only one date...... the recorded DOFD on the OC account that led up to the collection. Once 7 1/2 years has passed from the DOFD on the OC account, the responsibility is with the CRA to then discontinue any inclusion of the CA in any credit report they issue. That, of course, then also removes it from FICO scoring.
If the CA reporting is still showing unpaid, and you have evidence of payment, I really dont see this as a significant credit reporting, and certainly not a FICO scoring, issue. It is still a collection that FICO scores, until it hits its 7 1/2 years from DOFD, and the CA has nothing to do with that determination.
The significance of paid or unpaid, in my opinion, is what you can do if they should be stupid enough to now bring legal action against you for any unpaid debt.
Then payment is something you can show in court.
