How to Remove Advanced Collection Services from Your Credit Report
Have you been receiving threatening calls and letters from a company called Advanced Collection Services?
You likely have an old debt hanging over your head that they are trying to collect payment on.
Advanced Collection Services is a debt collector that works on behalf of other companies to get people to pay up on their old debts.
The problem is that sometimes they get information wrong and try to collect the wrong amount or from the wrong person.
Collection agencies like Advanced Collection Services can also have detrimental effects on your credit score.
You will need to remove Advanced Collection Services from your credit report to ensure that you can make big financial decisions down the line.
What is Advanced Collection Services?
Originally founded in 1985, Advanced Collection Services is a small collection agency that is headquartered in Bangor, ME.
They specialize in the collection on behalf of medical institutions, commercial enterprises, government agencies, financial institutions, utility companies, and higher education institutions.
Steps to Remove Advanced Collection Services from Your Credit Report
Advanced Collection Services is a daunting collector, but you have options when it comes to dealing with their harassment and effect on your credit score.
These are the steps to take to remove Advanced Collection Services’ collection entry from your credit report for good.
Request a Goodwill Deletion
Advanced Collection Services’ entire business model is built on their ability to coerce people into making payments, and they’re certainly good at it.
If you’ve given in to their scare tactics, you may be concerned about your ability to remove the collection entry from your credit report.
Luckily, you are not completely out of options.
If you have already paid a debt collector for the total amount of your debt, you can ask them to grant you a goodwill deletion.
A goodwill deletion is when Advanced Collection Services agrees to deletion a collections entry from your credit report out of sympathy.
Of course, sympathy is only a part of getting a collection agency to agree to a goodwill deletion.
You must have paid the balance of the debt and have a generally clean record apart from this instance.
To start, write a letter to Advanced Collection Services explaining the circumstances surrounding your late payments.
If you lost your job or had a serious medical emergency, you should mention this as it lends to their empathizing with you.
However, your reasons should always be truthful because they will likely ask for documentation.
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Ask for Debt Validation
Goodwill deletions don’t work for everyone.
Perhaps you haven’t paid the debt off, have other debts marring your record, or have doubts about the debt belonging to you altogether.
No matter your reason, you should always take advantage of your right to request debt validation.
Under the FDCPA, consumers have the right to ask a collection agency to validate the information on the debt they are attempting to collect
This allows you to ascertain if the information they are reporting on the debt is incorrect, which prevents you from paying an inflated amount or someone else’s debt.
However, you must request debt validation within 30 days of Advanced Collection Services’ first contact with you.
Otherwise, they may ignore your request and move along with their collection attempts. To request debt validation from Advanced Collection
Services, you will need to send them a debt validation letter.
This is a formal request for them to verify the information they are reporting on your debt including the amount, date of last account activity, and name.
Advanced Collection Services should respond to your request with a variety of documents.
These are meant to prove that the debt belongs to you and that they have all the necessary information in order to collect it.
Be sure to look through each page carefully. If you find any information that is incorrect, you can dispute the debt with the major credit bureaus and get it removed entirely.
Negotiate a Settlement
If Advanced Collection Services is able to validate your debt, you can still work with them to negotiate a settlement.
Specifically, you are going to want to make a pay-for-delete agreement.
A pay-for-delete agreement is a self-explanatory concept; a collection agency receives payment on the debt, and you get the collection entry taken off your credit report.
It sounds like a win-win scenario, but it can actually be quite difficult to secure a pay-for-delete agreement.
Many companies are hesitant to stop reporting accurate information because it essentially falsifies the record.
However, you may be able to get Advanced Collection Services to agree to it if they are desperate enough for payment.
To start things off, offer to pay Advanced Collection Services half of the total balance of your debt.
They will probably give you push back, so work with them until you come to an amount that you are both comfortable with.
Make sure that they agree to fully delete the entry instead of changing it to a paid account.
Once Advanced Collection Services sends you the terms in writing, make your first payment on the debt.
Wait a month or so before checking your credit report. You should find that the account no longer appears.
If it does, reach out to Advanced Collection Services and remind them to uphold their end of the bargain.
Hire a Professional
Even if you find that you are hitting brick walls at every turn, you can still use one final trick up your sleeve.
You can hire a credit repair company to help you deal with Advanced Collection Services once and for all.
A credit repair company is a type of credit professional that helps you communicate and negotiate with collection agencies.
They help people remove negative accounts from their credit reports and can even help you negotiate lower payments on your debt.
It is important to work with a reputable business when looking at hiring a credit repair company.
Otherwise, you may be paying them and getting no results. That is why I recommend Lexington Law.
Lexington Law has helped millions of people remove dings off their credit report.
They have over 28 years of experience and understand the industry inside and out.
If you are looking for top-notch service and a company that can get results, look no further than Lexington Law.
Advanced Collection Services Complaints
If you have been in communication with Advanced Collection Services, it should come as no surprise that they don’t have a good reputation among their customers.
Customers have lodged complaints against Advanced Collection Services with both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
Most customers complain of various violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), such as failing to validate debts and being harassed by customer service representatives.
If you find that your FDCPA rights are being violated by Advanced Collection Services, you may also want to file a complaint with oversight agencies.
Final Words
We all have big financial goals, and debt collectors like Advanced Collection Services stand in the way of them.
However, you can remove obstacles from your path by deleting collections accounts from your credit report and boosting your overall credit score.
Everyone has the ability to improve their credit through patience, knowledge, and self-control.
Check out some more of our popular articles to learn how to boost your credit score and build a life of financial freedom.
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