Dealing With Collections on Your Credit Report – Its No Big Deal!
By: Seomul Evans
Submitted: 2009-03-09 14:38:10 | Word Count: 615
Collection agencies are not the demons you got to be afraid of. In fact, they are the ones you should approach to deal with your credit report. It is far easier when done with them than any other and here’s why Collection agencies do not have any authority or legal permit to go collecting and therefore they are a loose entity themselves. In this case it is easier to deal with a person who is insecure to get your way than to talk to a secure one. Also, the documentation reports of these people too are not up to the mark and there are enough holes for you there to just walk right into it and out.
Pay for Delete
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In a pay for delete situation, all you have to do is pay a small amount for tiny collections like issues related to medical or something like that. In return, you can make the collectors to get your listing off the books in totality. It’s a tried and tested method and known to work wonders. Get to know the ways to do it in detail and you can make your report look real proper.
Settle the Debt
Settling the debt is almost like the pay for delete option, it’s just that this one involves a larger sum of money. This is where you got to use the gift of your gab and logic to reason and bargain. Tough negotiations are to be done to make the agency agreeing to remove your listing in totality. They will do that if you get into particular agreement with them offering that you will be paying a reasonable to sum that you can afford and you expect them to take your listing off. It can work if you do it right. The key here is to be reasonable with the amount you are to offer and go hard with the negotiations.
If you have incurred a debt, it is better to get it validated. There is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that can be used up on the collectors to stamp the validity on your debt. It helps. This particular method catches the agency off balance and is real beneficial for you in the long term. You can even go for the jugular if they don’t revert back by claiming that you would take legal recourse by filing a case. In that scenario, your claim would be quite valid and they would have to revert back to you validating your debt.
Here is another recourse. If you have gone to credit bureaus with a dispute on the negatives then you can use the Fair Credit Reporting Act and invoke section 623 dispute. You can ask them to investigate on the negatives. According to the law, they are supposed to revert back to you in a month on that. This works for you because the collectors do not have any factual recorded proof of anything of this sort and they will drag their feet on this one. You can win this round if you have done your preparations right. You should have fired the first salvo by going for the dispute on the negatives in the first place. If you have done that you are on the right track, but if you haven’t then well this one just wouldn’t work.
Finally, you can go for the obvious. Meet the lion at its den, if you like. Correspond with the credit bureaus and tell them to investigate of collections in your report. This one is a tough nut to crack, but again, every option is worth it when you are trying to repair your credit.
