best course of action on these collections

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have 2 collection accounts currently reporting: one with a georgia power company (sawnee) for $150 opened september 2012, and another for $151 with charter communications opened june 2015. I'm pretty sure the latter is erroneous as it stemmed from an "unreturned" box. Unfortunately I cannot prove it as I lost my receipt from them.

what would be the best course of action here? surely these are weighing down my scores, which are around 625 (FAKO). I just purchased a home and have not made a payment on the loan just yet.

thanks for any advice.

[Anonymous]

Dispute them via letter.

[Anonymous]

can i dispute them online through the bureaus? Also, for the dispute, would I not need to provide some sort of documentation? what would I put as reason for the dispute?

[RobertEG]

There is no single "best course of action."  It varies depending upon the circumstances and your goal.

If removal from your credit report is the main goal, and since the debts are relatively small, a first step may be to make the debt collector a pay for deletion offer, which is an offer to pay in exchange for their agreement to delete their reported collection.

That both discharges the debt and removes the collections from scoring.

Disputes require that you at least identify an actual error in their reporting.

Supporting documentation is preferable, as it provides some factual basis for their investigation.

Since no assertion of any inaccuracy is provided for the first collection, a dispute would be dubious.

[Anonymous]

I see. so if this were you, what would your offer be for the PFD? Any particular resource you would recommend on initiating the PFD request?

[RobertEG]

PFD deletions are normally difficult to obtain, as the CRAs have a clear policy statement in their standard credit reporting manual that furnishers should not delete informatin based on consumer payment of the debt.

I would not advise playing around with offers for less than the full amount of the debt, particularly in situations such as yours where the amount of the debt is relatively small.

Offering the full amount will provide the most incentive.

Constructing a PFD offer involves merely sending an offer, without admitting the legitimacy of the debt, to pay the offered amount simply to resolve the matter.

[Anonymous]

Greetings!

I know Charter and Georgia Power generally will delete once paid ( lived in Savannah myself). Charter I was able to dispute but they sold to another collection agency. Once they did that I was able to settle before they reported, thus never reporting! 

[Anonymous]

So should i call the agency, obtain all applicable information such as account numbers, and then send them a certified mail (?) offer for the full amount in exchange for deletion from my 3 reports? how do i go about doing this?

@marieland: thank you for your input

[Anonymous]

Hi RobertEG

Have you had success with a PFD offer with any of the collection agencies - specifically Portfolio Recovery Associates? I have one account with them for $2100 and want to pay it in full and get rid of this debt and clean up my credit report.

In your opinion, what is the best strategy to approach them for the PFD and what will make them willing to cooperate?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

onesunnypark

FICO 6/30/17 Ex 537