2 medical collection still showing on reports. Paid original owner of bills (hospital). The supervisor called the collection agency and told them to REMOVE all reference to these accounts from all my credit reports. I followed up with hospital and they confirmed that they told collection agency to do this not once but twice (once over phone and second time in writing). Collection updated EX and EQ with a zero balance and did nothing to TU. I disupted and all have came back verified.
What is my next step?
@Anonymous wrote:Even though the OC can asked them to remove them, the CA doen't have to. Generally, because they were asked they would. But it appears this CA is being stubborn.
You can try GW letters to the CA and see if that helps.
Who is the CA?
The CA is General Service Bureau out of Omaha Nebraska.
The original debt was for $53,000. In the end the hospital didn't bill insurance correctly, paperwork for adjustments got lost with an outside agency they hired to do that type of work. it was one mess after another. General Service Bureau ended up getting a judgement against me. I didn't let them beat me down. I continued to work with the hospital to get the mess cleaned up (the hospital was wonderful). In the end I ended up owing nothing. The hospital told the CA to stop collecting. They were than told to delete 5 of the 7 accounts (the last two we were still trying to figure otu what the true amount was and what was my responsibility). The CA removed the 5 off of EX and EQ but not off of TU. A week later the hospital tells me I owe nothing. The CA told me I owed interest on the bills so I asked what that was and was prepared to pay in full. I called them daily and after a week they informed me that the account had a zero balance because they can't charge interest on a debt that I ended up not owing. I called the hospital about the last 2 collections on my report and they instructed the CA to remove them. A month later they have updated them to a zero balance but did not remove them. Today I am filing a motion to have the judgement vacated. A court date will be set for the future. My letters to the CA to ask for the judgment to be vacated fell on deaf ears. A supervisor did tell me on the phone that the only way they will remove collections is if the person who hired the CA requested them to be deleted ask them too. This is why the hospital told them to delete the records. I think I will try the hospital one mroe time. I hate to keep bothering them as they have been so kind to me already. I feel I keep pestering them over and over after they have done so much already.
I used to work there whole I was in college. Was once an ACA Certified collector through them. I had an account that they reported to the credit bureau for 75.00 that I'm trying to get them to remove, and I don't think it's going to happen. And I was one of the better employees that worked there.
Don't get me wrong - the people that own the place are some of the sweetest folks you'll ever know. Their father owned it for a long time, and now it's two brothers and a sister that own it.
But in the collection game, they're ruthless.
Don't get me wrong - the people that own the place are some of the sweetest folks you'll ever know. Their father owned it for a long time, and now it's two brothers and a sister that own it.
But in the collection game, they're ruthless.
@alexhortdog wrote:
I used to work there whole I was in college. Was once an ACA Certified collector through them. I had an account that they reported to the credit bureau for 75.00 that I'm trying to get them to remove, and I don't think it's going to happen. And I was one of the better employees that worked there.
Don't get me wrong - the people that own the place are some of the sweetest folks you'll ever know. Their father owned it for a long time, and now it's two brothers and a sister that own it.
But in the collection game, they're ruthless.
Maybe you can give me some insite on this one..... I am leaving to the court house in about 15 minutes to ask for a court date to have the judgment vacated. Since it was deemed that I didn't owe it and there is nothing left for GSB to collection on.... Do you think they will bother showing up to ask the judge to not vacate it? I have my letters from the hospital stating that I do not owe on the accounts and my accounts have a zero balance. I think of the $53,000 I ended up owing less than $2000 which they collected by garnishing my ex-husbands paychecks.
I am going to try the hospital one more time and see if they will contact GSB to delete these last two files. If you have read any of my previous post you can note that I started out with 32 collections, 5 judgements and two student loans in default. (I am a cancer survivor). As of today my only negative are these last 2 CA and the judgment. All say zero balance but that is just not good enough. One collection is 2 years old as is the judgment so they are going to stick around a long time if I can't get them removed!
@Anonymous wrote:Well, that certainly sheds a different light on getting the CA to remove the collections. It appears to have all been done in error.
While you are asking for the judgment to be vacated due to having owed nothing in the first place, also ask the judge to have the collections removed. I don't know for sure if he/she can do it but it is definitely worth the shot.
The hospital called me back. He assured me they would get removed. He replied that GSB said it would take 45 days to remove them. When I told him that I had disputed them and GSB verified them he wasn't happy. He said he was calling GSB back and telling them to expite the removal off all reference to their hospital from my credit reports.
I also went to the courthouse today to see about having the judgement vacated. It cost nothing. I had to write a simple letter to the judge explaining why I should be granted a court hearing. The lady said the judge who originally heard my case was out today and Monday. She thought he would schedule a court date anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks away. She said I would receive a notice in the mail and to be sure and bring all the letters etc from the hospital. I asked her if other people have done this before and what the outcome usually is and her reply to me was "Our judges are very nice and very understanding." The biggest worry would be if GSB sent an attorney to contest it. The only reason I would think they would would be out of spite. They can't collect on it, they are the ones who filed the 'satisfaction' last week on the judgment.
Back to another waiting game. It seems this whole credit repair journey has been nothing but a long waiting game......
Lemme tell you who you're dealing with here...
They are one of the better places to work for in collections. They just actually won an award for that. As long as you got skin in their game, they're loyal to you. I worked there from 98 - 00 until I had to go do my college internship. There's 3 kids that owned the place when I worked there - their father started the business. Two brothers, and a sister.
The younger brother was over at their pre-collection department at the time. The eldest brother and the sister ran GSB. The sister is the one you really don't wanna cross, LOL.
They had a rec room, pool table, all the good stuff for employees there. I even went to a function at the president's house with my then Fiancee (now wife) where there were hayrack rides, and stuff for kids. They'll take care of you - as long as you work there. Now, if you're a person that USED to work there....forget it. Never mind that you helped build the place into what it is today - they got no time for you.
I think I got on their list when I asked about doing my internship (computer programming) there so I could keep working there. They told me no. I told them bye - gave them 2 weeks. Thought we left on amicable terms. I hadn't heard from them since until I had some medical bills go there in '10 for a surgury. When you get a bill from them - you better pay it, otherwise they WILL more than likely sue you.
I learned a lot about the legal way collections are done by working there. They paid for all of us to take the FDCPA Certified Collector's test. We all passed our tests and had our pictures taken and put in the ACA Magazine years ago. I even still have the paperweight on my desk here that I got from them as congradulations on the test, LOL.
The way they used to do it (years ago) was they had bills come into their office of all different kinds. If they had little to no asset info on you, they tried to do anything they could to get you to send a check over the phone. Then, they had an asset they could garnish against if needed - the bank account.
NOTE - if paying a collection agency, send a money order or do Western Union or MoneyGram. Don't give them any of your personal financial info.
Most people that I dealt with were those that were well on their way to getting sued. If they contacted you, and you didn't pay, or they couldn't get in contact with you, they'd then send the account over for legal review to the guy that did all the "contact us in 7 days or we will file a suit" work. If you didn't contact them in that 7 days and set something up, then they'd file to have a judgment entered on you.
If you had a judgement entered against you, then it was all over for you at that point. You'd be paying them somehow (unless you lived in Texas).
They used to have 3 attorneys there - Not sure about two of the attorneys, but one is now a district court judge here in Omaha (he and I were cool).
At that point, if they knew where you worked, or they had your bank account (from a previous payment), they would garnish you.
Here's the kicker:
If they garnish your job, they can only take a certain percentage of your wages (state law).
If they garnish your bank account, they put a lien on that sucker and can grab ANYTHING IN THE ACCOUNT AT THE TIME. And it freezes the account. Then you had to come into the office and pay to get it released, because you didn't want your next paycheck disappearing.
I garnished a doctor's account once to the tune of around 5Gs once. The dude drove halfway across the state to pay, and was plenty pissed off.
Again, if I had to work collections, there's nowhere I'd rather work. If I had to deal with collections, I wouldn't want them to have it.
NOTE:
Let me put this one plug in there for them. They're a highly ranked business on the Better Business Bureau. They do colllections well within the letter of the law. That's not a problem for them. But they know what things they can do inside of the law.