They won't take you to court for $550, I am assuming that is why they are going through the collection route. Do you have a copy of any paperwork for when you cancelled your gym membership? Did he gym send you any notices of payment? I would request this from the collection agency.

It sort of sucks that this small sum can affect your credit rating. It has mine, I owed 750 and they are trying to collect from 5 1/2 years ago. Oh ya, you heard it right. I only recently discovered it has been on my credit report since 2004 and it affected me buying a car in 2004 (I assumed because I had just started a new job), and almost affected me getting my Federal Government job (luckily my supervisor thinks the Finance departments at Universities at invalids) so I still go the job, but had it not been her I probablyl wouldn't have gotten my job.

I suggest checking your credit report first and going from there.

I just recently got a call from D&A claiming i owe them around 550$. This was from a gym i joined about 2-3 years ago. I went for about 2 months then completely stopped. Now i owe them the whole years worth and the account was canceled.

The catch is that I was under the legal age to sign up for the gym, and shouldn't have been able to sign up in the first place.

so what i really need to know is:

will they take me to court?
should i pay or not?
how serious can this be?
will my credit rating be affected? (mind you i didn't have one at the time of sign up)
can my age thing benefit me?
is there any way to take money from my bank account?

If it's only til December, it's best to let it ride... Otherwise, it will stay on your credit report for an additional 6 years from the date you pay it.

Even the guy from Consumer Protection said this would be the better way to go.

Do you suggest I just forget about the whole thing and let it ride out until the end of my delinquency period of 6 years which will end this December? Or should I send them a letter asking them to substantiate their claim and to not contact me in any way until they have evidence of their claim?

Stats barred means they can no longer use the legal system to enforce the debt. The debt will remain on your bureau for 6 years from the date of last payment.

D&A, if they purchsed the debt, could theoretically put it on the bureau... no idea if they will or not, but the damage to your rating is already done, and both must fall of the report at the same time, so there will be no additional long term effect on your credit even if they do list it.

If, however, you pay the debt, the "date of last payment" changes, and the collection, paid or not, stays on your report for 6 years from the date you paid it.

Contrary to D&A's claims, you can do more damage to your score by paying this.

whose advice to take... the lawyers... or the collection agent's....?

So, tell me, if I call you and say I want 1000... just to keep your credit good... so you should pay me now and worry about whether or how much of it you owe later... would you do it?

I received a call from D & A collection last week saying I had money outstanding to a university which I attended 5 years ago. I contacted the university and nobody can give me any justification as to what this is for. All they know is a $$$ amount. How can I pay a bill without proof. Anyways, I checked my credit report and it turns out that the university had given my account to collections 4 years ago but they were unable to contact me because I guess I had moved so many times. Nonethe less, I contacted the old collection agency today and they were very nice. The lady told me that my account at the University is considered statute barred as of January 2004. And that the University only has two years to sue if they were wanting to sue it. I have been advised by a lawyer not to pay the university until they can provide substantiation for the claim. In the meantime I am worried that D & A collections is now going to tarnish my credit report. They are telling me that I should just pay them in order to keep my credit good and worry about the university later. And that if I don't pay within the next week they can't guarantee that it won't go onto my credit rating. Please help. Could you explain further the statute barred in this circumstance. I would like to purchase a home in the next few years and I need my credit to be in tip top shape.

i had started a corporation with a friend. we had taken out a loan as part of start up loan. shortly after opening the corp. i moved out the country but forgot to take my name out of the corporation and loan and bank account. as a result there was default on the loan and my partner claimed personel bankruptcy. the loan was granted on personel credit rating. now D&A Collection Corporation has sent me a letter to pay in full and advised me to "govern myself accordingly" i had no idea what was going with the company, if have never made a withdrawl from the account nor have i agreed to any money taken out from the acount. my question is can they come after me in another country eventhough i was unaware of the debt?

I notice that there are people coming to our site looking for information on D&A collection agency. It must mean that D&A is agressively collecting them.

Drop us a line and let us know what is going on with D&A Collections. I'm very sure other people are going be interested to know as well. The more we know about collection agency activity, the better we can deal with it. The only way for us to know is for you to post.

(I know it's embarrassing saying that you've got collection agencies after you. ) This will be more of a helpful place to everybody with the more information we can gather.

Thanks,