I've been reading various posts from this website and am feeling a little better (that I’m not alone) because my blood has been boiling today. I need to know how to go about the most effective way of shaking some bureaucratic collection agency trees to get off their butts and do the other part of their job - report to Equifax and TransUnion that my debts have been paid in full !!
Background: I lived overseas for 20 years and came back to Canada a few years ago with nothing but my kids after a very difficult marriage. I had thought my new life would keep me overseas forever and so I had closed all my Canadian bank accounts, paid my loans etc. before I left.
As you've probably guessed, after 7 years, I disappeared off the Canadian financial system. Since returning to Canada, trying to prove my very existence in my own country of birth, with solid employment history, excellent credit and loan history (both here and overseas) and establishing my financial solidarity (even to the major bank I had dealt with for several years before moving away who I've sinced walked away from in disgust) has been a recurring nightmare for me.
Since I returned to Canada, my heart patient father went downhill and has since had a debilitating stroke, and my sister has endured two bouts of cancer, my children having only me to rely upon and recovering from the effects of an abusive situation, combined with the ridiculous cost of living here, well, my two jobs weren’t enough to sustain the constant attention to everyone's issues and I fell behind two months on everything, minimum payments only, that sort of thing.
My HBC and Sears accounts were consistently one or two months behind, but they both went to collections after a few months. (Very enlightening, by the way, to read that obtuse collections agent’s parasitic, stone-hearted view of people like me who - despite the huge and endless obstacles put before me by agencies, employers and financial institutions in my own country, and rather than be a drain on the public purse - who work 7 days a week in two jobs, and support as far as possible the needs of my children in college and university and those of my other family, while being active with community service).
So, now the family issues are levelling off and I am beginning to feel some hope of seeing the light of day again, I'm trying to reorganize and regroup. My issue: Those fully paid out HBC and Sears accounts from one year ago are still lodged on my credit report as R9 and Unpaid and no one will talk to me unless I constantly produce the receipts and payout letters for those payments. (BTW I never went as long as 6 months without paying, even if we had to go without groceries!). Since April last year, I have talked to and sent e-mails with the people to whom I was dealing in those agencies and to whom I had paid the money, also their supervisors, and still there’s been no action on removing Unpaid markers on my credit report.
I've just started looking into
credit repair solutions, but would be interested to know how you would deal with this situation and these greedy #$&*$% people because it's severely cramping the new progress I am trying to make?