Debt collection update
March 13th, 2008 | Living
So after a flurry of phone calls and faxes, we’re slowly getting closer to solving our problem with debt collectors. As we should have expected, basically nobody is willing to accept any blame. So now that we know we’re on our own with this one, we need to devise a game plan and stick to it.
First things first, we need to contest the debt. While I’m not saying that we don’t owe anyone money for my wife’s pharmacy purchase, contesting the debt obligates the collection agency to send us copies of all the paperwork they have on us. This way, we can start doing some detective work to find out where things went wrong. To contest the debt, we need to mail in a certified letter to the collection agency. So I’ll be making a trip to the post office later this week.
Next, I need to pull a copy of my wife’s credit report to see if the collection agency has added anything to her credit report. We recently bought a new car, and I used Annualcreditreport.com to get her report for free when we were lining up financing. The catch is that you only get one free credit report per year. So I’m going to have to investigate and see when I can get a credit report on the cheap.
After that, we need to track down a representative at my wife’s previous insurance company to find out why her purchase was sent to collections. Hopefully, at this point, we’ll have enough information that we can connect all the dots to this little mystery. She was still covered by this insurance company when she made the purchase, so as far as I know there is no reason why they should have sent it to collections.
Is there anything else that I’m missing? We’ve never had to deal with this before, and I’m afraid that I’m missing a major step in this process. I’ve been doing tons of research online, but there are a number of scam sites out there that are designed to prey on people getting harassed by creditors so I’m not sure if the information is trustworthy.
I can tell this $48.99 misunderstanding is going to turn into a major financial headache.
Why haven’t you called the insurance company yet? If you know she was supposed to be covered at the time then contact them first. If you contact them about the issue and they determine it to be in error they can call the item back from collections at no cost to you. It will save you a lot of headache and a trip to the postoffice.
Mini update:
My wife got off the phone with the insurance company. They require proof from Walgreen’s (our pharmacy) that she made a purchase for the amount the collection agency is saying we owe. So tonight she’s going to swing by after work and pick that information up. From there, we have to fax it over the insurance company, and hopefully they’ll work their magic.
I sincerely hope this is the anti-climatic ending to our debt collection story. I can only imagine the stress others go through when the debt is legitimate.
Sure sounds like a big pain in the ass. I might just pay it off and ask for reimbursement later, but I hate dealing with medical billings.
There are lots of places you can get free credit reports, drop me a line if you need and I’ll send you some links.
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At the moment, I don’t want to pay it off because it would put a mark on my wife’s credit report saying “Collection paid”. From what I understand, it would be a huge black mark against an otherwise perfect credit report and score.
I’m not saying we owe someone the money, but I want to get to the bottom of this situation before we do anything.
This doesn’t really address the base problem with the insurance company, but did you pull credit reports from all three companies? My understanding has been that you get one free report from each company each year, so if only pulled it from one, you can still check it out with the other two.
Good luck!
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