Collections limbo

[Anonymous]

That’s good here’s where you do a debt validation to find out. You should receive a Dunning notice within five days of their contact, if it was not part of the initial contact. It should advise you you have 30 days to seek validation, that’s what you need to do to find out. If so, see if you can do a PFD.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Today I was contacted by another company, Fidelis Recovery, regarding this account. They say they are now the collection agency responsible for my debt. Calls to both TOTAL and LTD cannot confirm that this is legit. I really have no idea who to believe.

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 Delinquent accounts get packaged up resold all of the time. I wouldn't expect previous owners to know who ends up with it at any given time. 

If you really are worried they are not legit, ask them to validate etc. But to me it seems your question has been answered - you now know who owns your account. So what was your plan when you found the owner of it? Now is the time to execute it. Particularly since you are in that first 30 day window. 

[Anonymous]

Once I know that this is legit (it seems to be so), I will be paying it off/settling ASAP, hopefully before it shows up on my report. Will there be any chance of a deletion of the charge-off from TOTAL?

Thanks for your help everyone!

[Anonymous]

With a debt collector you ask for a pay for delete, you make an arrangement that if you pay them 30% or whatever you agree to, they will not report it or will delete it.

With the original creditor you’re gonna have to try the Goodwill saturation technique

[Anonymous]

Just checking in to update. I finally got in touch with someone to pay this! Now that it's settled, I've written some goodwill letters to Total/TCI/Bank of Missouri and even reached out to the debt collector confirming that it wouldn't show up on my credit report. The person I spoke to said to call back (ugh!) and she'd email me a clearence letter that I can mail/fax to Total and the 3 bureaus for deletion. Hopefully, that should resolve everything. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Great job congratulations!

[Anonymous]

Hey @Anonymous wanted to see if you were able to get TBOM/TOTAL CRD deleted from your credit report? I'm in the same boat with them and they told me they would not remove it. I paid the collection agency it was sent to and they never reported to my credit report, just would love to get total card removed to see if it will give me an increase in my mortgage scores. Thank you

[RobertEG]

An original creditor has no obligation to remove their reporting from your credit report based either upon their sale of the debt or upon ultimate payment of the debt.  In fact, the common credit reporting manual used by the big-3 CRAs and incorporated into their reporting agreements explicitly states that reporting is not to be deleted based on discharge of the debt.

A purchasing debt collector can enter into a pay for deletion contract with a consumer regarding their own reporting, but cannot make a valid PFD agreement that includes stiplulation binding the original creditor to any such deletion.

Only the reporting party can agree to delete their own reporting.