Comedy of Errors

Y'all...have I got a story for you! One of my credit card companies allows free credit report monitoring, which I use, almost daily. That's how I found out that some of my information has been exposed on the dark web...multiple times. :-/ I want to make sure that I get "in front" of any unauthorized activity.


I recently bought a house and now, it seems like EVERYBODY wants what's left of my money. It could be worse and I know that it will subside, it's just annoying. Then, one morning I was checking my credit report and something popped up. A medical debt from Memphis that was "charged off." Immediately, I thought that someone had jacked my information, because I haven't lived in Memphis for almost 6 years.


Luckily, the creditor's information was listed, including a phone number. So, I promptly called to get it all sorted out. The representative let me know that this charge was from September of last year from an ER visit. Whoops...that WAS me. I escaped Hurricane Irma in Memphis. While I was there, I was bitten by something and my leg swelled to twice its size.  Since, I had been doing a lot of traveling, I thought it might be a blood clot. After the Dr. asked me questions about my activity level, he was like, "probably not a blood clot." And, it wasn't...I never felt a bite, but my sister noticed a red dot on the back of my thigh - after the ER visit, of course...but I digress. Anyway, I paid my hospital co-pay in the ER and received bills from the doctor and labs, so thought I was good. Well, evidently, I owed the hospital additional money but never received a bill because those jokers fat fingered my address or something. Bear with me...it gets better.


The collection agency representative rolled off an address and asked me if it was correct. I sad "no." I never received any sort of bill. Was the mail returned? Did anyone do any sort of address validation (most companies have a process like this for returned mail, right?)? Then, she said, "well, we have a copy of your drivers license. Is this your address?" I said, "yes, until recently, that was my address." THEN, she proceeded to tell me that her collection agency is not allowed to work with people in FL (they HAD my FL license!! Did that not raise a red flag??), so they would never have called me or sent any correspondence. Ok, well how in the crap was I supposed to pay this? Had it not shown up on my credit report, I would have never known. I'm like a Lannister...well, without all of the castles, killing, conniving, and incest. Ok, maybe I'm not like a Lannister...but I pay my debts!


After talking this through with the representative, she agreed that this was handled poorly from the start. I was not given an opportunity to pay this and it should be taken off of my credit report.  Her manager approved for it to be removed, if I paid the balance that day.


Ok...I was born at night, but not last night. If I paid the entire balance, what motivation would they have to keep their end of the bargain? So, I said that I couldn't afford the whole thing, but could pay half of the balance and set up monthly payments for the rest. The representative agreed. Most of the people I told about this had similar stories and all of them said, "good luck getting it off of your credit report...in my case, it was removed after 7 years."


Well, I am happy to say, that it has been removed from my credit report, now!! It took two weeks longer than they said that it would, but I'm persistent and was prepared to tell the representative that they would not receive another dime from me until the item was removed from my credit...but I didn't have to go all "bad cop" on her. I may have to buy a lottery ticket because luck is on my side. :-)