So, I received a letter in the mail from Enhanced Recovery about an old debt from Spectrum. The letter had a settlement offer and says "This serves as notice to you that ERC has been authorized to report your delinquent account to the national credit bureaus when allowed by applicable law."
I called and spoke to two reps. The first rep said it won't be reported to credit bureaus if it's paid since it hasn't been reported yet (or at least hasn't shown on my report yet). The second rep said they update their systems on Sundays and it can take up to a month for collection bureaus to update the status to paid in full. Neither rep could tell me if it's been reported to credit bureaus yet.
I'm hoping I've caught this and can pay it before it's reported and ERC will have no incentive to report it if it's paid. But I've read very different things about ERC and feel very uncomfortable about what they may do.
I've paid other collection agencies before they appeared on my account and they never appeared. I'm hoping ERC won't report either way but the fact that their reps claim not to really know anything is kind of strange.
Any thoughts?
@Anonymous wrote:Since almost all calls are recorded, tell them you'd like to make a pay-for-no-reporting agreement, and pay it on the spot. If you want to, you can also record the call (if you're in a two-party state, be sure they know you're recording it).
Yea, that's basically what I do. I'm in a one-party state so I always record calls with debt collectors. I paid through the person who told me it won't be reported several times but afterwards I started reading up on ERC so it has me a bit weary. I'm hoping at least that may be enough to give me a chance to dispute it should it hit my credit report later.
@blindambition wrote:I would certainly record any convo with ERC when possible. This CA is a mixed bag, and doesn't seem to be as ethical as some others. I would try and handle before a definite reporting though.
Yea, that's kind of what I thought as well. Some reviews of ERC are terrible. They're definitely the most suspect collection agency I've ever dealt with (and unfortunately I've dealt with quite a few). I pray that they don't report it when I paid it the same day that they notified me the debt existed.