Collections is not going to care either way, that is if it is not inhouse. If shes under 18, then she has nothing to worry about anyways. If she owes it, then she needs to own up to it. Go in and talk to a manager. If she is over 18 and its showing up on her credit report, then dispute it.
This is what I was thinking. She really did pay in cash. Doesn't have checks, and isn't the most financially educated person. In college, parents supply money etcetc. I get it now. Sorry about getting defensive. Abortion thing didn't even cross my mind since that is the last thing I want, or want to think about. Collector is a third party agency. I'm not in the city where the planned parenthood is currently. The best I can do is get on the phone with a manager. I think, logically speaking, heypartner is right in that they wouldn't let her walk out without signing something saying she will pay, or showing receipt of payment. If it's the first, we will have to pay up, if it's the second then this is a non-issue. And if it's none of the above, it will be annoying.
They said we have 30 days to take care of it before they send it off to the credit bureau. I want it to be taken care of by this week because we very surely paid it.
I'm surprised they've sold it to a collector so quickly. How long ago was the purchase? Did PP make any attempt to collect by themselves? I think it's worth talking to PP just to make sure the collection agency themselves aren't trying to do something shady. But, my guess is the collection agency has the debt because PP's systems show it as outstanding. If the computer tells them you owe it still, I doubt you'll get much movement. But, definitely worth talking to them about regardless. (If she paid cash, how do they have her phone number, etc to collect?) If you can't convince them as I expect, you can either pay again or dispute on your credit report. Paying again is ridiculous. So, you'll have to ignore collection calls for awhile and then when they report to the credit bureaus, you'll need to get copies of your reports and dispute that item. Of course, if this is all hush-hush, your girlfriend might not want to risk having a collector call her parents and have them ask her why collectors are calling. And she might not want to have "Planned Parenthood" show up on your credit report.
hope they can get it resolved by some sort of receipt. and sheesh, if she's well off, just tell your gf to tell her parents she needs birth control. it's MUCH less expensive and complicated than going somewhere like planned parenthood. considering i thought my parents were strict, i can't believe that a college-age girl can't ask her mom to get her on the pill.
Well, the issue is more about being from a more conservative family. The fact that in our culture it's sort of unacceptable to have sex before marriage, and yeah a girl can make up other excuses to get on the pill, but going into that would just lead to more and more questioning as her parents aren't even fond of the idea that she would be dating someone. Go figure? And they don't have her phone number, just an address where the sent a letter. We called PP and the billing department just asks you to leave a message and they'll call you back in "48 hours" which also makes things SO much more difficult. She went into PP today and they said there is no balance remaining, but when I asked the collection agency why they are still asking if there is no balance they said that in PP system is zeros the balance in order to prevent two people trying to collect. All in all, this is just a ridiculous situation, and I think we've she's learned to always get proof of payment in cash transactions from now on. Anyone have any other advice?
yeah pretty much the same in that regard but PP should have something on file you or her need to go down there and see, surprised they went so quickly to a collection agency. If anything the collection agency needs to show proof of the debt to her. I understand her need to pay in cash in this instance but she should have gotten a receipt. A bank statment showing withdrawal maybe ok but its hard to prove that if you withdrew 100 bucks on that day it was used at PP and not somewhere else you know? to buy yourself some time write a letter to the agency demanding proof of the debt to be send to you/her at the address they sent the original letter of validation.
