Refinance Debts 101

NCO Financial is a collection agency. They collect for retail, financial services, healthcare and other industries.

They started doing business in 1926 and are both first and third party debt collectors.

They are headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania. They currently have over 140 operation facilities spread out over 9 countries.

There mission statement says they are customer oriented and committed to integrity, teamwork and quality.

NCO Financial participates in credit reporting. Another way of saying this is they can create a negative listing on your credit report and cause your score to be damaged.

There is hope; you can have this listing removed. There are two options to have a listing removed from your credit report.

1. Dispute the negative listing with the credit bureaus.

This is done yourself by sending a dispute letter to the credit bureaus or you can hire a credit repair firm to handle the dispute process on your behalf.

If you do this yourself you must send a dispute letter to each credit bureau disputing the validity of the negative listing. Common reasons for a dispute are: the account has been paid, not your account, the listing is inaccurate and etcetera.

2. You can come to a settlement agreement with NCO Financial. However I would suggest disputing the listing first. If that does not work then consider making a settlement offer.

You do not have to pay the full balance with your settlement. I would suggest starting your offer at 50% of the balance of the outstanding debt.

Also make sure that you have in writing that NCO Financial will remove the negative listing from your credit report in exchange for payment. Otherwise the listing will remain on your credit report and making payment will not help improve your credit score.

You should also be aware that NCO Financial may not be the only company reporting a negative listing on your credit report for this account. The creditor may also have reported this account as a negative listing too.

It is common for collection agencies to sell accounts that they are unsuccessful collecting on. Thus NCO may have sold your account to another collection agency that has created a negative listing on your credit report too.

If your account is being reported by multiple agencies then I suggest hiring a professional credit repair company. This is a good idea because by paying one agency it will not remove all the negative listings.

However if the debt is legitimate and you decide to make payment do not pay the full amount. Collection agencies buy your account for pennies on the dollar. Thus you are giving them a huge profit if you pay 100% of the balance.

You should know that NCO will only be able to remove the listing that they made for the account. They will not be able to remove any listings created by other companies even if settle the account with NCO.

I would recommend having all communications with NCO in writing. This way if there is a breach of the settlement agreement you have written documentation.

In sum, dispute the listing first and if unsuccessful then make arrangements to settle your account. Get in writing that the listing will be removed from your credit report in exchange for payment.