Grab our RSS

tonitunes · #1 05-12-2008, 05:42 PM

Ok, this is going to be a little bit long so please forgive me.

When I moved from Arkansas to Washington 2 years ago I had a cell phone with Alltel. They don't offer local numbers or really any good reception in our new area so we called them and tried to see if they would let us out of our contract. They wouldn't budge so I waited another couple months so they could see that indeed we couldn't use our phones up here. We called again and got a sympathetic woman who agreed that we should cancel. She agreed that the early termination fee would be waived because we moved to an area that they didn't serve.

Now just a couple months ago hubby and I pulled our credit reports and both found entries on all three major cra's from Alltel in the amount of... you guessed it, the termination fee.

I'm a bit wiser now and realize that if you don't get it in writing then it's as if it never happened so I do realize that I'm in for this debt. I didn't get the woman's name much less an agreement in writing to waive the fee.

I wrote to Alltel disputing the validity of this debt and received this answer:

We received correspondence from you asking for validation of your debt to Alltel. Please find enclosed the bill copy that will give you the information you are requesting.
Your account has been placed with Palisades Collections. Please contact them at 1-800-873-5648 regarding payment arrangements and further inquiries on the account. The balance on the account is $449.75
Alltel appreciates your business and looks forward to continue serving you in the future.

We also got a generic letter from Palisades Collections stating this:
Previous Creditor: Alltel Communications
Current Creditor: Palisades Collection, LLC
Current Balance $449.75
Charge-Off Date: 3/6/2007
Open Date: 2/11/2005
plus some identifying information I'll leave out.

Now this is on our credit report for both hubby and I and it is on all three of the major ones. On them it is listed as from Alltel Communications. Nothing at all is even mentioned about Palisades Collections. So here's our question. We don't mind paying it as it was our own stupidity for not getting it in writing in the first place that they were willing to waive the early termination fee. But what we really want is this removed from our credit report.

I would do a PFD but I'm not sure how to go about it as Alltel says to talk to Palisades and Palisades are not the ones reporting.

I'm kinda new to all this so I would REALLY appreciate some advice here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this "booket".

NightStar · #2 05-13-2008, 11:56 AM

Try to deal with the original creditor and get them to remove for payment of the fee.

If you can't deal through the creditor you might see if the collection agency can deal on the reporting.

Not very likely, you might have to pay and then dispute it with the credit reporting agency try to get it deleted. Start out disputing "not mine, please remove."

If paid they may ignore the dispute and allow it to be removed. Not a sure thing, but a possibility.

tonitunes · #3 05-13-2008, 04:05 PM

That's what I've been thinking of doing, but I've had some other friends telling me that as it's an early termination fee because I moved out of their service area I wasn't liable to pay. This I agree with, BUT I didn't get it in writing that they agreed to that and right now my main concern is just getting it off my CR... I don't want the OC or CA to know that but I really don't care if it costs me the full $449 or not, I would gladly pay that just to get it removed.