By mistake i paid a collection agency. it affected my credit score. what can i do?

Question

I had a problem with Nextel, never gat the service but was billed for it. Try for a year to fix it by phone. i tought it was ok and rhen the collection agancy started to callevery day. it was only 100us so i paid...now my credit score is destroyed...what can i do?

Answer 1

You have some good information and some that is not so good.
Here is the lowdown:
You have paid the debt, so it causes the status of the entry to be the same as new one, in terms of its age. This means that it will be there for 7 years from the date you paid it. That is the downside.
The upside is, as someone else mentioned, it will show up as paid.
As for disputing the entry, that is always a good practice, but you can reasonably expect only about 30% success. This is because when you dispute it, the collection agency often refers the credit reporting agencies (the people you will dispute with) to the original debt holder. So verification is pretty easy for them.

However, it is still a very good idea to dispute negatives, as there is always a chance that the verification will fall over somewhere along the line and you can get the entry removed.
Be sure you dispute the entry with ALL THREE major credit reporting companies: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
It's a hassle, so be patient and persistent!
One word of warning: If a company fails to verify your debt within 30 days, the entry has to be removed from your report by law. But that doesn't mean the company can't re-report it!
Some companies don't bother, others will. It seems less likely that a company would do so for 100.00, but it happens.

It all starts with getting a copy of your credit report.
By law, you are entitled to one free copy from each of the three major credit reporting agencies every 12 months.
This website breaks it all down for you:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre21.shtm

A few more words of advice:
Don't let anyone lead you to believe that there is any legal action to be taken. Saying you owe a debt (even if you don't) is not defamation from the law's point of view. Additionally, collection agencies are under no legal obligation to "verify" debts before calling you and trying to convince you to pay. They are only required to "prove" the debt if they seek a judgement in court.

And especially don't get taken in by "credit cleanup services".
They are more accurately called "wallet clean-out services". They have no methods of clearing your credit that are not available to you as a private citizen

One last thing (and I am not trying to be harsh). If a 100.00 negative item "destroyed" your credit, it wasn't very good to begin with. I suspect it is not as bad as you think. Get your report, and work on the negative items. Write to the credit reporting companies as soon as the 7 year limit runs out and ask then to remove the item. They will probably get to it eventually, but the sooner the better. Be patient, be persistent. Time, and responsibility form here on out are your strongest weapons.
Good luck.

Answer 2

Dispute it on your credit report since you never received the service. By law, if they don't respond with verification in 30 days, it is deleted from your credit report. Nine times out of ten, a collection agency won't respond. If they do, dispute it again the following month, they will stop responding. Good luck.

Answer 3

in case you bypass into collections this is going to effect your credit and score. this is going to constantly be there for sort of 6 months then your credit could desire to be ok because of the fact which you probably did pay it off. yet going to collections is often a bad element. Thats whilst it is going and outcomes your credit negatively.

Answer 4

Paying the collection did not destroy your credit. Have you pulled your credit report (AnnualCreditReport.com)?

There's something else on there that dinged your score. You probably had a delinquency for that Nextel bill. Paying it will make your report look better.

Answer 5

hire a lawyer to sue them back, for not validating the debt,
and defamation of character. Most likely the Collection Agency bought the debt and you had no signed contract
with them that said you would pay them


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