| > Coming out of college I was in the bottom 5th percentile in the nation from random medical debts and such, and within a year I was in the 95th percentile. This is only possible by virtue of having little to no actual credit history. If you're in your 30's with a mortgage, paid off student loans and paid off vehicles, you're not going to make massive positive changes to your report in a year without major negative items falling off. > For instance, you would think it would be a good thing for your credit to pay a delinquent bill? Almost never. It's acknowledgement that you owed the debt to begin with, so it hurts you. Are you referring to items at collections? Then yes and no. Collection agencies will usually offer Pay-For-Delete if you ask for it in writing, in which case you pay the item and it's removed from your report altogether. You still end up having to pay the bill. The alternative (if it's a valid delinquency) is to let it sit for 7 years until it falls off. > In the case of your doctor's office, the best thing to do is NOT pay the debt collector, and then go a different route through the doctor's office instead. I've never had a medical bill sent to collections, but I did have a (thankfully small) student loan sent while I was diligently paying the other loans because the mail was going to the wrong address. However, I can say from that experience that I could not pay my school at that point. The collector owned the bill. They had paid the school for it, so the school had already gotten its money. But there's no HIPPA violation in sending a medical bill to collections, and making false accusations like that to get out of paying a legitimate bill (or getting a legitimately delinquent account removed from your credit report) is slimy at best. |
One of the accepted methods here goes as follows: Pay the Doctor's Office. Send a letter saying you refuse them to share any information about the service provided. Challenge the debt collector through the credit reporting agency. Collector will then try to get the doctor's office to confirm the debt, which they no longer have a compelling reason to. CA drops it off your report because collector can no longer confirm it.
Works almost all the time. There is no false HIPAA accusation here.
>B. Are you referring to items at collections? Then yes and no. Collection agencies will usually offer Pay-For-Delete if you ask for it in writing, in which case you pay the item and it's removed from your report altogether. You still end up having to pay the bill. The alternative (if it's a valid delinquency) is to let it sit for 7 years until it falls off.
Collection agencies do not like to pay-for-delete. They'll say they're legally bound to report exactly as it happened (also a lie). They will fight you on it if your debt isn't significantly large enough that they're making enough profit for it to be worth it. You can get them to do it, it will just take time and negotiating.
>A. This is only possible by virtue of having little to no actual credit history. If you're in your 30's with a mortgage, paid off student loans and paid off vehicles, you're not going to make massive positive changes to your report in a year without major negative items falling off.
I had 12 delinquencies removed. They were of varying difficulty, all different collectors. Some were easy, some very, very hard. One in particular I had to go so far as to pull phone records from years ago. Any negative item falling off your report is huge. Even one small $100 delinquency hurts you a ton, regardless of your history.
The only thing I didn't deal with was credit card debt. I hear its a lot harder to get late payments removed, but I've never tackled it.