The collection agency told me that the debt was turned over to them, but they said they have no control....?

Question

over the interest rate. They said we need to contact the creditor to see if we can have it adjusted. Was the debt really turned over? I thought that once a collectiong agency has your debt, you have to deal with them directly, not the creditor? What's going on?

Answer 1

You ought to see if you can settle the debt with your original creditor. See if you can get an agreement of "pay for deletion," too, so that it would help your credit score.

Answer 2

The collection agency is simply a service the original creditor has hired. Turning the debt over is simply a figurative term, the original creditor is the ONLY creditor. The exception to this is of course if the original creditor were to sell your mortgage to another institution. Your agreement is then transferred to the new creditor.
You can actually tell the collection agency that you have no debt with them and not to contact you any further, they then MUST abide by this direction.
Your best bet is to probably contact the original creditor, and set up something with them.

Answer 3

It is hard to know just what has happened, but it sounds like this collection agency is working to help collect the past due debt which is still owned by your creditor and that they have not purchased your debt. If they had purchased it (for pennies on the dollar), they would have complete control.

I advise you to contact the original creditor to see if you can make a deal. If you let this go on, you will get some problems that will cost you a lot more money.

Answer 4

Nope. Collection agency is charged with collecting the debit only. Changes to the debt have to be made by the original debit company. You can always go back to the original debiter and try and work something out.

Answer 5

The interest rate on a debt cannot be more than what you agreed to in the original contract.