I have been working effortlessly to get my credit back in shape for the last year. Needless to say, I checked all 3 of my credit reports this month to see how well my scores were doing. I could not believe it when I saw a Charge off in black form a company called "Portfolio Recovery", for $75.00! I called them the next day during buisness hours and was told that this was a medical bill from Sacred Heart hospital in Chicago in 2004. I was a flight attendant living out there at the time, I was furloughed and moved home to Pennsylvania in January. I paid all the bills that were sent to me by Sacred Heart (co-payments), and never received a $75.00 bill. I asked Portfolio why they never notified me of the bill, I would have just paid it... It was only $75.00. They said they mailed me a bill to the address in Chicago in May and I never responded. I said... Well of course I diden't respond I haven't lived there for 3 years, I asked them why they did not check the obvious credit, mortgage and other records that show I bought a house in Pennsylvania in May. They said they mailed the bill where the hospital said I lived. I asked Portfolio to send me a letter that worded that they never sent me a bill to my present address before charging the account off, and I would pay them the $75.00. They said O.K. When I received the letter, it was a bill for $75.00, stating that a letter was sent to me in May giving me 30 days to dispute the validity of the bill and I never responded, and that this was reported to all 3 credit bureaus. No word was mentioned of them sending the bill to an address that I have not lived at for 3 years. I called them back and spoke with a manager named Jaime Kari, who was the same individual I spoke with 1 1/2 weeks before, saying they would send the letter with the information that the bill was sent to an invalid address. This same manager turned into Beelzebub, he laughed and said he diden't care what I did with the account, he diden't care if I paid it or not, it was already reported to the agencies, and that no future letter would be sent with the information that Portfolio sent the bill to the wrong address. He said the credit bureau would tell me that I should have set up a forwarding address (which I did)... I don't know how long that stays in effect though?
I stumbled across all these complaints quite by accident, and can see that this company needs to be stopped. I reported them in writing to all 3 credit bureaus... I don't know if anything will come of it... But I think it is completely unfair that I have a charge-off on my reports for 7 years, when I never had a chance to even pay the bill. I will go on trashing Portfolio Recovery's name and reputation, as I don't know how people can work like that, and sleep well at night. What goes around, comes around... And it will for Jaime Kari too!:)
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