Why is it a bad idea to call the CA directly? I have a university balance that was placed with collections. I have tried to call the university to have them recall the debt, but they said they cannot (or will not, based on policies I have since read online). It doesnt appear that the debt was sold, but merely placed for collections. I have always read to NOT call a CA, and only communicate in writing. I have the funds to pay off the debt in full, so I want to take care of this. I would just like some input from the group on reasons why it may be a bad idea to just call them and pay it. I have seen on BBB website that the CA does report the balance as paid for 30 days and then removes from credit reporting.
UPDATE: I paid the debt in full in April 2022. The OC did not recall the debt, so I paid the CA directly. At the time of the call in April, the CA said they did not do PFD. I paid it anyway and sat with the updated "paid in full" on my credit reports. I had sent a few goodwill letters over the last few months to the CA and no response. On 11/29/22, I reached out to the CA via a BBB complaint, stating exactly what I felt. I could see BBB reviews that many people were granted PFD every single month this year, but felt it was discriminatory that my request was denied when I asked via phone. Whatever they choose to furnish to the CRAs must be accurate and correct, but I could clearly see they frequently granted goodwill. Especially since this debt collection was a covid-related loss of income, I felt it should apply for goodwill exclusion of furnishing reporting of the paid debt. The CA responded via BBB messages that I "hadn't filed a dispute on my CRs to dispute the tradeline." So I immediately did that on 11/30/22. By midnight between 12/1 and 12/2, all three disputes were resolved for each CR and updated as deleted from my reports. Scores updated this morning and heading in the right direction. Now to work on paying down my utilization and hopefully seeing a score rebound from that.
Starting Score: 461