Next Steps with Charge Off

[Anonymous]

Hey Guys so this is a follow up to a previous post (sort of) 

I have an old account from Citibank through their partnership with Best Buy. The account was originally through Capital one but was transferred to Citibank. I had a couple of baddies on the account and it was eventually charged off. I made a payment on 3/25/14 and I thought I was done. Earlier this year I realized that they were still updating the charge off every month  with a $0 balance and a paid in full after charge off notation.

When I called to see why it was still updating monthly if it was a zero balance, I was told that the payment from four years ago never went through and that I still owed a balance. Needless to say I was a little upset. 

I tried to do a debt validation and they found that the debt was valid and they are saying that they can not do a pay for deletion. They also have decided to update the balance from $0 to the $359 that I owe. This will go toward my CC utilization I'm sure and lower my utilization percentage. Which I have worked hard to get down to 9%. 

What should I do now? How can I persuade them do a pay for deletion? Should I leave it unpaid? Is there a number to contact? (I have tried emailing the CEO but no response) Wait for it to fall off? 

The SOL is up so I know they can't send it to collections and sue me (right?). Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

THANKS!! 

[RobertEG]

I would not pay a debt twice.

The primary issue now appears to be whether you have any evidence that shows you actually paid, and they deposited, your prior payment.

If so, you can dispute their updated reporting showing that the debt is unpaid, that there is a current debt balance, and that the current status is a delinquency status of charge-off.

As a side note, the update to show paid, $0 balance does not remove the reported charge-off from scoring, as it remains under your payment history profile.  However, it will require the current status to be updated from a delinquency status (i.e., charge-off) to paid, and thus effect scoring updates by reporting of an extended period of continued delinquency.

[JVille]

So did you pay it or not???? Can you prove you paid it?

[Anonymous]

Thank you both for your response. I remember paying it because it was during a period where I was closing and clearing all my credit cards. CitiBank is saying that the payment was returned 8 days later but 1. I never received this correspondence 2. They never called and told me. 

I have been working on getting my bank statements from this time so that I can prove it. Its a smaller bank and she said it was a "special request" so I'm hoping I can get those statements soon to prove I paid this. 

I was just rushed because I"m in the middle of trying to get a mortgage and didn't know if I should go ahead and pay it again or what.