I think I seriously got screwed over. Here is what happened:

two years ago I signed up for a crappy VOIP service. I used it for a couple of days and decided i did not need it anymore. I ended up paying for their service for a couple of months until my credit card expired. However, they kept charging me for another year. I eventually got a call from the VOIP company to pay but I refused to pay. After a year, a collection agency sent me a letter that I had to pay for the collection in the next 30 days or they will report me. I have outstanding credit and I paid right away to prevent my credit score from dropping.

Today, I got my credit report and the collection agency contacted the credit agencys even though I paid the balance within 30 days. My score dropped from 720 to 620!! I want to apply for a mortgage but with this score I will get crap.

This is what shows up in my credit report. It looks like that they filed this 7 months ago. I have NEVER received anything from these guys until 4 weeks ago. As soon as I heard that they will send it to a collection agency I paid it.




Is this legal what they are doing? Btw this is their url: http://www.skobrenner.com. If I have to take them to small claims court I will take them.

Check out the following links. Basically, you have the right to challenge any incorrect information on your credit report.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_the_ ... e_consumer

thanks for the links. I did use the 1800 number of the FTC to get some advice. Their customer service is actually pretty good.

I ended up talking to the collection agency and they said that they never received payment from me. However, I was able to fax him proof of payment dated 4 weeks ago. He said that they did an error on their end and that they will get on it to fix it.

I believe it when I see it though. We shall see.

It's worth a few minutes to go ahead and dispute it through the credit agency as well. I haven't seen the other two, but with Experian it's as easy as a couple of mouseclicks. I suspect it's in your best interest to show that you disputed it, not just that they "fixed" it, which may or may not repair your credit score.

There's probably a useful lesson here as well, though.

It's important to explicitly cancel service, rather than hoping that they'll just go away when your credit card expires.


Sam