Are you sure they would remove it? The information they had was correct. I was way behind on the $73.00.
It was not a mistake by them, so I don't think they can remove it.
They may it all depends on who you speak with and what mood they are in that day.
Basically the law says that correct information must be reported but discretion is still left to the company to report the information. A common tactic used in debt collections is to get a payment negotiation on the condition that the credit report is cleared. It takes place every single day.
It never hurts to ask and yes, they can remove the negative mark if they so desire.
Entries are only removed if the original record was erroneous.
I own a collection agency. I avoid medical collections because they are difficult and frequently heart-breaking.
Consider this: for every placement we receive, someone took a good or service and did not pay for it. The merchant or vendor paid for the product to sell it. Now the customer won't pay. Not every debt warrants small claims court.
National recovery average for agencies is about 7.6% (we recover 22.6%). We do not harass debtors, we send standard letters, we do not report credit until after the customer has had the opportunity to dispute the debt as required by law, and once reported, we stringently follow the rules and report any and all payments timely. We contact the debtor by phone and are always courteous which is probably why our recovery is so high.
We treat everyone with respect and never resort to name-calling, empty threats or disparaging remarks.
We've been doing this 7 years and have never had a complaint filed or an inquiry from the BBB.
The key is hiring quality people, rigorous training and constant monitoring. We do not have quotas and do not pay commissions to our collectors.
All of you apparently have dealt with the big national guys with 60% annual turnover, pondscum who skim the cream and move on.
Not all collection agencies are crooks, just like not all of you are poor spellers... lol
my 2 baht.