Welcome to the forums!
Since you can afford to pay this med collection, I suggest you use the HIPAA letter process. Here are the first few steps.
1.) You must Opt Out of two things: Your Credit Reports and
All Creditors. The first one ensures that the CRAs will not sell your
personal data to anyone else (haha…no more data mining). The second one
will prevent JDBs (and CAs) from buying and selling bogus collections.
Use this link to opt-out of your credit reports
OPT-OUT CREDIT REPORTS (or call 1.888.567.8688)
Use
this link to opt-out from all of your CURRENT creditors that you're in
GOOD standing with. Do not attempt to opt-out with any CAs or current
creditors that you're in BAD standing with (i.e. charge-offs, or
currently late).
OPT-OUT ALL CREDITORS
2.) Also, be sure to update your personal information with the CRA's before attempting to reestablish your credit.
3.) Send the pre-HIPAA dispute letter to the CRA ('s) CM (no RR, this is
the only letter in the HIPAA process where you will not send it
CMRRR) and wait up to 35 days for the results of the their
investigation(s). Be sure to handwrite this letter and use personalized stationary. If your med collection is deleted, you're finished. If the collection is not deleted, please post again in this thread and we will give you advice on what to do.
PRE-HIPAA MEDICAL DISPUTE LETTER
