[kimophil]

Hi guys, I'm new here. I read through some of the stickies and they are defintely valuable. But I am kind of lost on what kind of direction I should take regarding my recent credit blemish...

I recently received a letter from a collections agency about a 90$ debt I owe. The original creditor is AT&T with whom I currently have an active account in good standing. So I called AT&T and found out that I had unpaid bills from my last account with them. This is what happened:

- About a year ago I closed my cellular account with AT&T to open a new family account with them. My phone # was changed but I stayed with AT&T...
- I moved to a new apartment shortly after the account cancellation/activation.
- AT&T told me they mailed notices to my old address and never heard back so they sold my account to a collections agency.

I find it very odd that that they sent my old account to the collections although I do still have an active account with them. I feel they did not put in reasonable efforts to contact me. They obviously had all my updated contact information in their system because I had another active account with them. But they never bothered to check and find the link...

Now my credit report shows a collections account and my score is not good... How should I go about reparing this? Is this something I can open an dispute with Experian? AT&T didn't sound like they were willing to settle this with me directly.....

[hannah]

How old is this account? When was account charged off and sold?

If older than 2 years, see this thread.

[kimophil]

Thanks for the reply, Hanna... Definitely not older than 2 years... I closed the account about a year and 3 months ago. Credit report shows that the collections account was open on 9/1/2007.

[hannah]

Originally Posted by kimophil

Thanks for the reply, Hanna... Definitely not older than 2 years... I closed the account about a year and 3 months ago. Credit report shows that the collections account was open on 9/1/2007.

In that case, I would call AT&T back and explain the situation in detail and ask if you can pay them the balance due. If they had your new addy for your new phone, then they had your addy and this was their mistake as they didn't send you your final bill for the other plan. Be pleasant but be firm and talk to a supervisor not a phone drone. Remember, it's not your fault that they "mistakenly" sold it to a debt buyer and they need to fix this situation including the hit on your credit report.

[kimophil]

Thanks for the advice... I'm going to call them Monday and try to sort it out.