Credit report/Collections question

[elessar78]

So just did the annual check for me and my wife's credit report and had a negative pop up on hers. Apparently, she never returned a text book to her university library during grad school and the amount was sent to collections. It's listed as $75, so we just want to pay it off and get it off her record.

What's the process of getting this taken care of? It's better to contact the agency rather than wait, right?

thanks for the advice.

[JoshuaHeckathorn]

Paying it off won't remove the collection from your credit reports. It will just be updated as a "paid" collection, which unfortunately hurts your FICO scores just as much as an "unpaid" collection. It will then sit on her credit reports for about 7 years from when it was first delinquent.

The first thing I would want to do is determine if the debt has been sold to the collection agency or just transferred. Often, for debts this small, you'll find that it's just be transferred by the school to a 3rd party collection agency. If that's the case, I would try convincing the school to pull your account back from collections so you can pay them directly. If you call the school first, you should be able to find out from them whether it was sold or transferred.

[dczech09]

There are only two entities who can remove the derogatroy remark from your credit history. They are the original poster (the university I am assuming) and the credit bureau itself. The original poster will only remove it if you make a deal with them. The bureau will only remove it if it can be proven to be inaccurate (which it sounds like it is not).

If you want it removed, you gotta talk to the university as I am sure they put the remark on there in the first place. Honestly, you probably will not have too much luck, but you never know.