Greetings. A little background:
I've simply ignored my credit all my life. I own a house, paid in full. I own a car, paid in full. I don't have credit cards. BUT... I've always ignored medical bills. I am now just beginning the long road of credit repair. I'm fully responsible for my debts and plan to pay them in full.
I'm completely ignorant to all of this and have begun reading everything I can get my hands on to learn the best way to go about this. My goal is to is raise my score up from 570 to at least 700. I'd like to qualify for a home improvement loan within a year or two.
Now that introductions are out of the way I have the first item on my credit report.
Under Public Record there is are three judgements. Two say Status: Civil Claim Paid. I'll assume that these were paid in full via wage garnishment in years past and will just have to fall off my credit report with time (one in 2016 and one in 2018)
There is one more judgment that says Status: Civil Claim Judgement. Several months ago I received a leter from an attorney stating that they were taking me to court. I attempted to contact the attorney via phone a dozen times without success. Frustrated, I gave up. I'm fairly certain (although I didn't retain any of the documentation) that THIS judgement matches the amount stated in that letter. This is a compilation of unpaid medical bills.
What I want to know:
1.) How do I go about paying this? Do I contact the courts? Do I contact "Account Recovery Inc"? Google doesn't really give me any concrete contact information for that company name.
2.) Should I just contact the appropriate party and pay them in full? Is there any better way to handle this?