Free Credit Report Three Year
2010
How does one deal with a debt that you have not had a bill for in over three years?
Three and a half years ago I had a stay in a local hospital. I received bills over the next two months, and paid every one of them. After about 6 months I stopped receiving bills, and when I inquired as to why, I was told that the section of the hospital I had stayed in had closed down and they didn’t know anything about the bills. Since it was closed down there was no number available to call regarding the debt. I never received another bill from them.
This morning when I ran my annual free credit report a debt for $1,174 came up as being owed to that hospital for my original stay but it said there was nothing past due. It is assigned to some credit company in Cali, but they have NEVER contacted me. I have not moved since I stayed in the hospital, my phone number has not changed.
My family, have all used this hospital a few times since this initial stay, and have always paid the bills we received. So I am more than surprised to see this on my report.
What should I do?
dispute the entry on your credit report. There is a reference number listed with the collection company.
Write a letter disputing the charge … dont give any reasons, other than that you are disputing the entry. Send the letter to who ever produced your credit report … i.e. TransUnion, Experian, or Equafax, there address will be at the very end of your credit report.
Now make several copies of the letter … I mean SEVERAL,
You will need to bombard the credit reporting agency with the same letter every 3 weeks. By law the collection agency or hospital has to respond to your dispute within 5 business days back to the agency – with you bombarding them with the same letter they will give up and remove the entry from your report.
Now, understand that the entry is not going to fall off in a day or so … so bombard these guys for a good 2 or 3 months. You should get a letter back from the reporting agency that the entry has been removed.
To keep your credit score up … one of the things people dont realize is that each time a credit report is run … even annually, the credit score goes down. Each inquiry will cause you to lose points.
Happy hunting
Also, I would not send them any additional money. If the debt is that old, they have already written the debt off and has taken the tax credit … so any money you send them would be gravy since there is nothing to apply it to. (If you are in business then you understand what I am saying.) If they have not written the debt off, then you can work out a settlement offer of just a few hundred dollars … but you let THEM tell you that it is due … dont offer anything.
The collection agency gets paid (generally 50%) of whatever they collect if a debt is real old. So all you would be doing is paying the collection agency for nothing.
My advise is just to bombard them with the letters and let it all filter itself out. In the end you will owe very little or nothing.
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