This is patently false. They will remove it if they are feeling particularly jolly when you call and ask. But they are under no obligation to do so and they have denied this action to me before.
I’ve been in this situation and you can make repayment contingent upon deleting the negative remarks. As in you send me a letter certifying you’ll delete the remark, and I will remit payment.
If they refuse then you can just refuse to pay until they relent. Their only alternative is to take you to court or sell to the next collection agency down the line. Creditors and collection agencies won’t take that action except as an absolute last resort.
One of the challenges with this is that technically the TOS between a creditor and the CRA forbids the practice of "pay for delete". So you may get lucky, but oftentimes, you may not.
That's actually not true. If you pay the collection agency, the derogatory mark gets removed within weeks. You also typically only need to pay half the amount. If they try to get you to pay the whole thing, just tell them you're using your tax refund to pay off debts, but you only have $X left, where X is half the amount owed.
For sure it's a valid concern and warrants a mark on my record probably but a 30 dollar bill after 10+ years of pristine activity basically removing my ability to take out a loan is a little unfair.