Caught your attention with the title, no?
hope you bear with me now...
Anyhoo, I'm trying to delete a negative entry on my CR (credit report). It's an entry for $270 that I was put on there by a CA (collection agency) for not paying my last ConEd bill when I moved because the bills kept on coming to the old address and I wasn't aware of it.
The CA does not want to remove it even if I pay it.
After some research I came accross the
PFD (pay for delete) concept, in which you send a letter to the CA in order to negotiate something for them to remove the entry from the CR.
Nevertheless the
DV (debt validation) method is said to be quite powerful and one step before the PFD. In DV you are asking the CA to validate that you owe them the supposed debt and that they actually own the account, thereby causing them to have to get a bunch of papers in a short period of time, and if they fail to deliver you get to dispute the entry with the CB (credit bureau).
My question is: Since the CA writes on their notice that "Unless you notify this office within 30 days after receiving this notice that you dispute the validity of this debt or any portion thereof, this office will assume this debt is valid." etc..
It's been way more than 30 days since I got their notice, more like 6 months, can I still request
debt validation or is it too late and I have to just PFD?
I feel like PFD id like the last bullet and should only be used as a last resort.
I also fear that they will reject my PFD letter because the amount I owe is quite insignificant ($270) and they might not want to lift a finger for such "petty money".
Other than that, my credit is spotless, I would really like to remove that, if anyone has other tips please share!
