Questions concerning Incorrect Collections on Credit Report

[Anonymous]

Good morning everyone,

Sunday morning I was notified by myfico that a collections had been added to my credit report. I have never missed/been late on a payment. On Monday I made contact with the collection agency and found out it was a medical account of my fathers. I am a junior so our names are identical (except for the obvious senior/junior). The collection agency said they would take care of it and only needed my driver's license and social security card, which I provided to them. They said it would be taken care of within 72 hours, but that my report wouldn't show the change for 30 days.

Question 1: Isn't it absurd that a collection agency can RUIN my credit for a month eventhough I've done NOTHING wrong???

Q2: Are there any proactive steps I can take to lessen this burden? i.e. contact my credit card companies

Q3: Should I aslo make disputes with the CB's?

Thanks for your help in advance!!!!

[Kree]

I don't have a good feeling about the SSN and DL bit.  There should be no reason to provide those, other than they are trying to collect more information on you. Maybe someone else has facts instead of feelings though.

q1:  if you dispute, it will often be removed from report while dispute is in progress.

q2: I wouldn't worry to much about it, but I could be wrong.

q3:  Dispute. If it isn't resolved send them a letter "This isn't my debt, remove it within X days or else I will sue"  (you can only do this if you plan to sue, but talk to a lawyer these type of claims will often be done for free because they can take fees out of the slamdunk lawsuit.)

[thornback]

Filing a dispute with the CBs will take just as long to resolve (30 days). But they may add a consumer dispute comment to the item which would keep it from being factored into your score until the dispute is resolved, which would make you feel better - though it will likely still appear on your report.

The only other thing you can do is wait it out and hope it will be removed before 30 days - collection agencies generally request removals on whatever day of the month they usually report - so that could be midmonth, earlier, or late month.

Contacting credit companies probably won't do much good either - unless you are applying for something - in which case I'd wait till the item is gone.

It is absolutely absurd. But so long as they fix their error, not much else you can do. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Thank you

[Anonymous]

An update on my situation:

After filing for a dispute with the CB's, as of today the collections have been removed from my reports. It took the CB's only 2-4 days. I was incredibly worried, but the whole process was painless.

[JVille]

Keep an eye on this. The Collection is going to be sold repeatedly to other agencies as time goes by. This WILL continue to haunt you in the future. You may want to put a Consumer stmt in your credit file regarding this issue.
Friendly advice but Please don’t make your son The Third! Good luck