Small Collections Account That Isn't Mine Ruining my Credit :-(

[Anonymous]

So I got a call about 2 months ago from Harvard Collections saying I owe a $100 for an overdue Con Ed electric bill from 2015. 

The thing is I moved out that NYC apartment to Philadelphia and so that is not my debt. Another collection agency tried to collect this debt from me and I sent them all the documentation showing it wasn't mine and they agreed with me and stopped pursuing the matter. 

I told this to Harvard Collections when they called and requested they verify the debt. I never received or heard anything from them and I guess it was my mistake to not follow up. Then I get a notification today from Credit Karma that the $100 debt has been reported to all three agencies. I have copies of my lease in Philadelphia proving that I did not live in New York City at that time along with my graduate school tution bill and transcript. Is this enough to win a dispute with the bureaus?

What should my next step be? Should I call Harvard tomorrow or just sent a a certifed letter request verification. I am super stressed because I am about to buy my first apartment and don't want this to ruin my application. Thanks in advance for all the help!

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Send a request for debt verification and file a dispute on all 3 bureaus. If it's not legitimate, that should take care of it.

[RobertEG]

Alternately, you could treat as an identity theft issue, and get the collection blocked from your credit report by following the identity theft procedure under FCRA 605B.

That process requires that you put your assertion that you never authorized any account that established the asserted debt into a police report, which is a sworn statement before law enforcement.  That then serves as the basis, without any involvement of any reporting creditor or debt collector, to get any information related to that debt blocked from your credit report without any need legally resolve the matter via involvement of any reporting party.

[Anonymous]

So I won the dispute with Experian and they will remove the item, however I lost with TransUnion. What are my options now? I didn't go down the identify theft route. 

[Bees18]

@ishamazon

did you ever figure this out? I had them pop on on my report for a $45 bill to a place called "shadow Services" which I've never heard of or been too. I disputed with ex and they removed by eq will not. I filed a complaint with BBB and they did not respond to the complaint. 

Has anyone eles dealt with Harvard Collections? How are they allowed to not verify the debt or respond and if EX took it off that means they couldn't verify it so how did EQ keep it?