Vent: That one old collection account from 2014 took 8 months to get removed

I had this medical bill from a visit to a clinic in Phoenix back in 2014 that turned into a collection. I swear I paid it off in 2015 but it still showed up as a negative on my credit report. It took me 8 months of sending letters back and forth and even a dispute through Experian to finally get them to verify it was a mistake. The whole time my score was stuck around 640 and I could have gotten a better rate on my car loan if I had caught it sooner. Has anyone else had a collection hang around way longer than it was supposed to?

2 comments

2 Comments

olivia_morgan817d ago

Phantom collections are the gift that keeps on giving.

jenny_jackson17d ago

Oh wow, that is such a pain! I had something similar happen with an old utility bill that got sent to collections twice somehow. What really helped me was checking the original date of the debt first - sometimes the date they report is off by a year or two, which changes the statute of limitations. And @olivia_morgan8 is right about phantom collections, but one thing I noticed that nobody talks about is that sometimes the collection agency itself is actually out of business and someone just bought the old file, so they have no paperwork. That might be why it took you eight months - they were probably scrambling to find proof.