ITIN credit transfer to new SSN - Collections - Home Refinancing - need help!

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

I'm in need of some englightment, hoping for some good advice!

I am a foreign national and I have been coming in and out the US quite a few times over the last 10 years. From 2017 on I had to spend longer periods in the US and using my credit cards issued in my home country became expensive (high exchange rates, taxes etc.) and I ended up getting a few american credit cards to help me offset these costs.

I had an ITIN number and got approved for those cards, to which I never had a late payment. It was also very expensive to keep renting a car, so I ended up leasing a car - all this with my ITIN number and so a credit history was created.

In 2019 I decided to get a mortgage on a house, as it was too expensive and meaningless to keep paying rent as I travel a lot and the mortgage payment would be less than the rent. It was a bad deal in terms of interest rate (over 6%) and I am planning to try and refinance this as soon as I can <- This is my main objective. It was approved using my credit from my country of origin. With the current market situation, the valuation for the house was good news though.

Recently I became a resident, received my social security number and I am now thinking about what I should do in regards of credit.

Note that during all this time, I was able to get my Transunion score (not the full report) from BofA, my Experian from Amex and I had no idea about Equifax. To my knowledge, as an ITIN holder you can't get your reports directly from the bureaus as they can't identify you. I spent countless hours trying to overcome this to no avail.

With my newly issued SSN, I went for my Transunion and just found out that I have a collections from AMERICAN MED SYSTEMS INC. for the amount of $160.00. I do recollect visiting an urgent care which is the original creditor and this was probably some claim that my international health insurance denied at the time (guessing sometime in 2019/2020). If I knew I had this, I'd have just paid it off.

Upon finally checking my Equifax, everything looks good and I'm in the 780's.

I am still waiting for experian to somehow link my SSN to my credit score so I can see what's in there. I'm struggling with their support as it keeps giving me an error when I try to login. I know there must be a problem as I had a score of 780 and it dropped to 611 on January of this year (according to Amex). It could be the same collections agency or maybe other denied claims from my previous health insurance? As I travel a lot and moved many times in the past, I'm guessing they were not able to contact me.

Questions:

- Having in mind I need to refinance the home I bought as soon as I can (6-18 months from now), what should I do to improve my chances? Finance a car? Get some other type of loan?

- What would be the optimum way to get rid of this collection? Should I try the original creditor first? If they accept my full payment, will it be deleted from the bureaus like a PFD?

- I did a search for this collections company but couldn't find anything about them other than their website. Does anyone know if American Med Systems Inc. accepts PFD? How should I approach them? I really wanted it deleted, not marked as paid in full.

- Should I dispute my SSN with the bureaus (that currently have no number on file) to update them of my new number or should I wait until I fix all this? Will it make a difference?

I feel like this small problem is hurting me more than it should and I hope I can get a good score once this is settled. Hopefully I can get rid of this situation quickly! I appreciate any and all advice. 

Sorry for the long post, thank you for reading all this!

[FireMedic1]

Welcome@Anonymous 

The home loan is already a installment loan. So more loans wont help much. If that Urgent care is nearby. Go there and ask if they would take payment and recall the CA.

Now that you have a Social Security number, you must rescind your ITIN, and the credit bureaus must be notified to transfer your credit history associated with your ITIN to one associated with your SSN.

But first you must notify the Internal Revenue Service of your new SSN. Follow the instructions outlined by the IRS and be sure to include a copy of your ITIN and new SSN. You should then receive a letter from the IRS confirming the change. Then you can include a copy of the letter from the IRS confirming the change to your new SSN when you write to the three credit bureau agencies to make the request. The transfer shouldn’t take more than 30-60 days and shouldn’t affect your credit scores.

[Anonymous]

Hi @FireMedic1 !

I am afraid that paying the Urgent Care (OC) could make the CA report this as paid in full instead of deleting it. Would you say that's a high risk?

I'm going to write that letter to the IRS right now. Thank you for this info - and for replying, I had no idea I had to do it.

[Anonymous]

Update:

I just spoke with the Urgent Care (CO) and they said they'd take the payment and notify the CA. They don't know if they "retract" or if the CA will "delete" or mark "paid in full". I decided to call the CA to find out more.

The CA (American Med Systems) is closed (they close at 4:30), so I guess I will have to call them monday. Still, I'm feeling that I have better chances with them. What do you think?

[FireMedic1]

If the UC will take payment. The CA has nothing to collect on. So it might be the UC still owns the debt and the CA was just collecting on their behalf. The UC cant take payment from a CA and sell the debt and double collect from you and the CA. Make sense?

[gdale6]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Update:

I just spoke with the Urgent Care (CO) and they said they'd take the payment and notify the CA. They don't know if they "retract" or if the CA will "delete" or mark "paid in full". I decided to call the CA to find out more.

The CA (American Med Systems) is closed (they close at 4:30), so I guess I will have to call them monday. Still, I'm feeling that I have better chances with them. What do you think?

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Medical collections are some of the easiest to get removed from your CRs, here are the steps that you should follow to address them:

1. Call the OC and see if insurance can be billed, (or-rebilled), collections ultimately paid by insurance get removed per new rules that came from CRAs settlement with 22 state AGs. If not then
2. see if you qualify for Charity Care, if not then
3. ask that they recall the collection in exchange for full payment
4. Send the reporting CA a PFD offer
5. Google the HIPAA Process and contact its creator for help, this process cannot be discussed in any forum of myFico.

Adding: The OC has to recall the debt in order for the CA to delete it, if they wont do that then move on down the list.