Paying Bills, Avoiding Collection Agencies, Let Postive Be Reported On Your Credit Report
First of all, whatever you do, before you let the account get to a collection agency, make some sort of payment arrangement with the actual creditor or service provider. Depending on who is billing you, you can always make some sort of agreement and stay with it. The majority of the credit reports I’ve reviewed consist of medical bills, utility bills more than anything else. In other words, on the average, medical related collections take the number one ranking on credit reports and make about 35-38% of the credit problems. Although to lenders, medical collection MAY not be as important as credit cards, car loans, utility bills and other collection or charge-offs, but they still count and reduce your credit score. The second problem is the utility bills (power, phone, cell phone, cable) which makes about 30-32%, followed by credit card and unsecured loans, then car loans, home mortgage payments or real-estate rental derogatory items.
Of course the late car payments later becomes repossessions. The late house payments may end up as foreclosures. The late rental payments most of the time becomes a judgment (as a result of eviction/dispossessory) or even destruction of property.
One thing I do not understand about rental is why people destroy the property where they live. Okay, let’s presume the tenant doesn’t want to pay the rent or doesn’t have the money to pay the rent. Why destroy the property during the eviction period…?
Anyway, let’s get back to the collection agencies.
Collection agencies are the type of companies that most people don’t want to deal with. If you were unhappy dealing with the actual creditor and its customer service representatives, do you think dealing with a collection agency is going to be any easier? Think again.
Collection agency representatives make their revenues by being the most aggressive and sometimes unethical people. In order to get their point across, they rudely interrupt, raise their voice and even sometimes scream, make demands, and most importantly lie a lot. It’s a lot easier to deal with creditors than dealing with collection agencies.
To give you an idea, if you have medical bills, then contact the service provider (doctor, hospital, clinic, etc.), make some sort of small payments per month, but be honest and make the monthly payments. The medical facilities even accept payments of $10.00, 15.00 per month as long as they know you can’t afford making large payments and that you’ll do your best to pay the monthly amount agreed (based upon the total amount owed). Meanwhile, be reasonable. If you have $10,000.00 worth of bills with ONE facility, offering $5.00 per month will not work. At minimum offer $50.00 to $100.00 per month. Creditors know that if they do not collect as much as they can, they may never be able to collect and if they have a collection agency involved at minimum, they must pay 25% of the amount collected to the agency. There is a lot more to this.
In the book, “Your Credit = Your Life, Fix It Now!” These issues are detailed and complete solutions are provided.
Mike Samadi is an author of several books and is widely known as a credit repair expert. Read Mike's book ("Bad Things happen to Good People. Your Credit = Your Life, Fix It Now!" or "Saving Your Money") to gain knowledge and experiences needed to overcome your problems. Please visit the website at www.MasterCreditRepair.net) to find out more and fix or maintain your credit, post questions and comments.
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