Experience with Removing: Merchant’s Credit Guide
Statistics:
- Original Creditor: Edwards Hospital
- Original Amount: $664
- Collection Account: $664
- Debt Status: Valid
- Date of First Delinquency: January 2009
- Collection Status: Paid
- Removal Technique: Credit Reporting Agency dispute after paying the Original Creditor
Merchants Credit Guide
I didn’t have medical insurance in 2009. I went to the emergency room for, well, an emergency and I was billed. I decided not to pay the bill because I didn’t like to pay bills back then. You can see my dilemma. Edwards sent the account to collections after about a year. Who could blame them? I wasn’t paying.
Merchants Credit Guide is a Chicago based collection company that handles collection accounts for area hospitals. They were a complete train wreck to work with. I sent a debt validation letter almost immediately after receiving the dunning notification, and they properly validated.
After a couple months of pay for delete offers, they were not budging, and getting a little more aggressive with their collection tactics. I considered sending them a cease and desist letter in regards to phone contact, but with my goal of completing my home purchase within the year, I needed to take care of this account one way or another.
I called Merchants Credit Guide and tried to negotiate a settlement. They would refuse to budge. In fact, they were downright rude and combative. I always fine it odd when companies act way in response to someone offering to pay a commitment. The woman on the phone actually went way over the line, and was insulting, so I actually hung up on them immediately called Edwards Hospital.
Edwards Hospital refused initially to take payment on the account, however, after explaining why I was delinquent to begin with (didn’t have insurance and didn’t have the money) they reconsidered. After paying the hospital, they provided me with a letter showing the 0 dollar balance and the account as satisfied.
I called back Merchants Credit Guide and informed them I had paid Edwards, and they were really upset with me, but who cares? They informed me under no circumstance will they remove the account from reporting. At this stage I decided to dispute the account with the credit reporting agencies as ‘not mine’ – This failed, and it was validated. At the time, I was unaware that even if you pay the original creditor, the collection account can still report.
I decided to think outside the box. I sent a letter to them, certified return receipt , asking for the good will deletion. Why did I do that do you ask? Well, I wanted the green card to report it to the credit reporting agencies when I made my next dispute. I wrote a letter to each agency, indicating that I paid the original creditor for this debt, and my debt validation was not responded to. I sent the green card, the letter from Edwards showing the 0 dollar balance, and the original dunning notification from Merchants Credit Guide.
Within weeks, it fell off all my reports. Take that snotty Merchants Credit Guide.
Steps to Remove Merchants Credit Guide from Credit Report.
- Pay the debt to the original creditor
- Send a debt validation letter to Merchants Credit Guide by certified mail return receipt requested.
- Send paid receipt from original creditor, the green card from Merchants Credit Guide, along with a dispute letter to the credit reporting agencies. In the letter, dispute indicting you paid the debt before it went to collections, and Merchants Credit Guide will not respond to your debt validation request
