Re: Help With Collection Accounts
1) An OC doesn’t have to call, assuming they had your number. They have to provide a final bill, but there’s no rules to the extent of collection activity. If ever faced with closing an account, get it in writing from them that the final balance is $0.
2) The OC could be directing all calls to the CA and posted the CA’s number within their contact info.
3) How long ago did they agree to delete? If over a month ago, mail a GW with a kind reminder that they agreed to delete. A CA reporting can and does hurt your FICO. Their CSR is off-base.
4) For nstar, maybe if they are the OC and you didn’t open in 2012. If nstar is the CA, then they are reporting correctly. For CAs, open date is the date they took over the account. If the OC is reporting that, it might be worth keeping in mind. If nstar is the OC and is unpaid, send a PFD. Otherwise if paid, send a GW.
Whats Different About Cellular Medical And Utility Debt
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More traditional forms of debt like credit cards and loans report your payment status on a monthly basis. As long as you pay on time, these types of accounts help you build healthy credit as you use the account responsibly.
Not so with cellular, medical, and utility debt. These payments generally do not appear on your credit report unless and until the creditor has negative information to report:
- Late payments
- Collections
- Chargeoffs
Put another way, paying your cell phone bill, doctors bill or electric bill does nothing to help you build credit. NOT paying the bill can torpedo your score.
If you see one of those types of accounts on your credit report, chances are, its hurting you.
Will National Recovery Agency Sue Me Or Garnish My Wages
Its possible that National Recovery Agency will sue you, but if you work with a law firm like Lexington Law, you have nothing to worry about. They will help you dispute the collection account and possibly get it removed from your credit report. Its also quite possible that you will never hear from or have to deal with National Recovery Agency again.
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Can I Improve Credit Score With Utility Bill
Credit scores can be improved in many ways, but paying utility bills on time is usually not enough to make a meaningful difference. While gas, electric, and water are common utility bills that people pay, the information is not reported to the credit agencies and does not appear on an individual’s . On the other hand, loans and credit cards, including repayment history, are substantially more influential in determining an individual’s credit score.
Can Utility Bills Affect Your Credit Score
Usually, when you think about your credit score, you think about it in terms of the ability to get a loan or credit card. You dont think about your credit affecting other parts of your life.
While its true that utilities are different than credit lines, theyre not as different as they might seem.
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Utility Bills And Credit Reports
The bad news for consumers is that, typically, utility bills only appear on a credit report when they’re delinquent. In most states, providers aren’t obligated to regularly report payment histories to the major credit bureaus in fact, there are significant disincentives for doing so. In addition to being expensive, reporting to credit agencies makes the utility company subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Most don’t want to bother with the potential legal fallout.
If you’re significantly behind on your bills, a gas, electric, or water provider may send your account to a collection agency that couldand likely willforward the information to one or more of the . Of course, paying your bills on time will help your credit, insofar as the absence of “negative” items does not ding your score.
But if you’re looking to improve a , simply paying gas, electric, or water bills on time probably won’t do the trick.
When You Might Have To Pay A Deposit For Utility Service
If youre a new utility customer, or if youre an existing customer with a poor payment history, the utility company might say you have to pay a deposit to get new service. Or they might ask you to get a letter from someone who agrees to pay your bill if you dont. This is called a letter of guarantee.
Here are a few things to know:
- Generally, the company must treat everyone the same.The companys policy for requiring deposits or letters of guarantee must be the same for all customers. If youre a new customer, the company can ask you for a deposit or letter of guarantee if their policy is to ask all new customers for one, or if they do so for all whose credit history is poor.
- Youre not a new customer if youve already had an account with the utility company under your spouses name. If youve had utility services under your spouse’s name at places youve lived before, your household is technically not a new customer. In that case, a utility company cant ask you to pay a deposit or get a letter of guarantee claiming that you are a new customer, when you want to set up utilities in your name.
- Your spouses utility payment history could affect whether youre required to pay a deposit or give a letter of guarantee.If the companys policy is to ask for a deposit or guarantee letter if a customers credit is poor, your spouse’s late payment history could be taken into consideration even if your own utility payment history is fine.
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The Difference Between Hard Inquiries And Soft Inquiries
There are two types of credit inquiries: hard and soft.
- Hard inquiries typically occur when you initiate a credit transaction, such as applying for a loan or credit card. That said, one additional hard inquiry will typically knock less than five points off a person’s FICO® Score. Where it can have a greater impact is if you have too many inquiries in a short period. Why? Because it can be a sign of financial distress.
- Soft inquiries, on the other hand, have no effect on your credit score. These typically occur when a prospective lender sends a preapproval offer, or an existing lender runs a credit inquiry during a routine account review. Similarly, utility companies checking your credit are soft inquiries. Checking your own credit report is also considered a soft inquiry.
National Credit Adjusters Complaints
This business currently has nearly 1049 complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and roughly 146 with the Better Business Bureau. Many complaints are about inaccurate reporting and/or lack of response to debt verification requests.
This means working with a professional like Credit Glory to challenge your negative accounts has a good chance to get them deleted, improving your score and allowing you to qualify for the home, car, and credit cards you need.
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Are You A Victim Of Identity Theft Nra Can Help
NRAs Identity Theft Prevention Program is designed to detect, prevent and mitigate identity theft.
It is NRAs commitment to protect existing consumers, reduce the risk of identity fraud, and minimize any potential damage to consumers.
If you think you are a victim of identity theft, please visit:
Please notify National Recovery Agency of this claim.
This site is designed to help you find the information that you need to communicate with NRA and to help you stop NRA collections
Ways To Lower Your Usage
Many utility companies offer tips on how to conserve electricity, water, and gas. You can usually find these on the company’s website or in their bill inserts or brochures.
Consider an energy audit. This involves finding out where youre wasting energy and how well your heating and cooling systems work. The U.S. Department of Energy offers a do-it-yourself energy audit tool to help you do this.
Get more energy saving tips from your state consumer protection agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.
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How To Pay Off Old Utility Bills
If the debt collector is able to prove that you owe the outstanding utility bill, its time to start working with the debt collections agency.
Remember that collections agencies buy your debt for pennies on the dollar. They dont expect to get paid in full for most or even many of the debts they purchase. Use that to your advantage.
Try to negotiate to set up a payment plan. If you cant pay the full amount at once, set up a plan where you make monthly payments for a set amount of time until the debt is paid off. You can also try to settle for less than you owe.
For example, if you owe $1,000, ask the debt collector if you can settle the debt for $600. This can potentially save you a lot of money.
If you do negotiate with the collections agency, get everything in writing. A verbal agreement is not worth much in court, so you might later find that you still owe money to the agency, even though you fulfilled your end of a verbal agreement.
Having it in writing makes it easier to prove.
Are Utility Bills Reported To Credit Bureaus
Utility bills have historically been left out of consumer credit reports entirely, primarily because they’re not considered credit accounts. Even now, utility companies don’t automatically report your monthly payments to the three credit reporting agencies .
With a new tool called Experian Boost, however, you can have certain utility accounts included in your credit report to help increase your credit score.
This tool is available only for your Experian credit report, which means that utility bills will continue to have no influence on your Equifax and TransUnion credit reports, along with your credit scores based on those reports.
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How Poor Credit Scores Impact Utility Bills
While utility companies arent going to charge you huge interest rates for having a low credit score, you may be looking at additional costs when you want to set up your water, electricity, or gas account, according to Jim Chilsen, spokesman for Citizens Utility Board, an Illinois nonprofit that looks out for the interests of residential utility customers:
Keeping a good relationship with your utility avoids a lot of headaches but a bad credit score is like a bad first date. You dont want to start off on the wrong foot. Thats because utility companies are allowed to assess you a deposit if you have a low credit score.
Chilsen clarifies that not all providers will require a deposit, and low-income customers may be exempt, so you should look up the laws and regulations in your area. Even if you currently have a good credit score, Chilsen warns that previous credit scoring issues, like an account that had fallen into collections, could lead to requiring a deposit.
Your Rights If Youre Denied Utility Service
You have the right to know why the utility company denied you service. The company has to send you a notice, within 30 days of its decision, telling you the specific reasons why they denied you service or notifying you that you have the right to know those reasons. You then have 60 days to request that they tell you those reasons. You must submit your request in writing. You also could contact your state or local consumer protection office to check on any additional rights under state law.
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National Grid Customer Service In Upstate New York
National Grid is the electricity and gas delivery utility company providing service to customers in upstate New York. It is the largest natural gas distributor in the Northeast, and provides service to nearly 7 million customers in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Here you can find out everything you need to know about National Grid in upstate New York.
Summary :
Moving to Upstate New York? at phone currently not available to activate your National Grid service and supply with an ESCO in minutes!
Sales To Identity Thieves
In 2013 a Vietnamese national, Hieu Minh Ngo, was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with attempting to sell personally identifiable information on hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents. This information had been allegedly purchased from Experian subsidiary and data aggregator Court Ventures. However, Ngo testified under oath that the information he had sold to identity thieves had actually been acquired from another hacker based out of Russia, and not Experian or Court Ventures. Ngo then resold the information he acquired from the Russian hacker through the identity fraud enabling websites Superget.info and Findget.me. The information offered for anonymous sale on these websites included individual’s name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, place of work, duration of work, state driver’s licence number, mother’s maiden name, bank account number, bank routing number, email account and other account passwords.
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Applying For Utility Services Is Applying For Credit
If youre moving into a new home and you need to set up and pay for utilities, youll need to apply for those services. When you apply, companies often look at how youve paid your bills in the past, including how youve paid bills for utilities where youve lived before.
Heres what you should know when you apply for utilities:
- Youre applying for credit. Utility companies send you a bill at the end of the month based on how much gas, water, or electricity you use. That means theyre extending you credit for their services until you pay your bill.
- Companies will look at your credit history. Like other creditors, utility companies will ask for information like your Social Security number so they can check your . A good credit history can make it easier for you to get services. A poor credit history can make it harder.
- How you pay your utility bills can become part of your credit history. If you pay your bills in full and on time, it can help your credit. If you dont, it can hurt your credit. Failing to pay on time can also lead to collections and charge-offs, which can especially damage your credit. Not paying on time also can affect whether you can get other types of credit. Learn more in Understanding Your Credit.
How Does A Collection Affect Your Credit Score
Once a debt turns into a collection account and gets logged on your credit report, you will see a significant drop in your .
If you didnt have any other negative items on your credit report, this drop could be north of 100 points.
How far your credit score falls largely depends on how bad it was, to begin with.
In other words, a single collection account wont be a huge deal to someone who already has multiple delinquent accounts and a consistent string of late or missed payments, even on their up-to-date accounts. This person already had bad credit.
But if youve established a long history of making on-time payments, keeping a healthy credit utilization ratio, and maintaining a blend of different types of credit, a collection account will make a huge negative mark.
As the collection account ages, its impact on your credit score will lessen. But this wont help if you need new credit this month.
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Mistakes You Didn’t Make
Incorrect information in your credit history can hurt your score. People with common names, for example, frequently find other people’s information in their file. In other cases, typos and clerical errors result in adverse information affecting your score.
This is one of the reasons consumers are encouraged to check their credit reports at least annually and dispute any mistakes they find. You can obtain free credit reports once a year from each of the three major credit bureaus through the official website, AnnualCreditReport.com. One of the best credit monitoring services could also be useful in this endeavor.
Review your credit reports at least once a year to check for errors or missing accounts you’d like to see listed.
Original Creditor Vs Collection Agency
Sometimes the same debt can appear twice on your credit report, which can multiply its negative impact.
For example, this can happen when the original creditor sells the debt to a collection agency, which then reports the same debt to the major credit bureaus.
When youre struggling to make on-time payments, try to resolve the debt before it goes into collections, if possible.
Many lenders have relief programs, flexible payment options, or even programs allowing you to skip a payment.
If youre already being contacted by a debt collector, its too late to fix the problems with your original creditor.
But you can still resolve the issue using one or more of the options above.
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Collections On Your Credit Report
Companies typically turn to collection agencies when bills are severely past due and the providers are unsure whether they will ever recover the debt. Once a collection agency assumes the debt, it typically opens a collection account in the debtor’s name and sends a record of that account to one or all of the three major credit bureaus. When that happens, the collections account becomes a part of your credit file.
Once a collection account or charge-off becomes part of your credit history, it can have a lasting negative effect on your credit score. These are considered derogatory marks and can remain in your credit file for seven years. Even if you pay the collection agency and the account is closed, a record of the debt will still remain.
Collection accounts don’t only negatively impact your credit scores, but they can also come with expensive fees that increase your overall debt. If you’ve had a collection account opened for a past debt, it’s best to try to resolve it as soon as you can before the issue escalates any further.