Medicredit is a collection agency that specializes in buying medical debt from hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare providers.
Collection agencies, such as Medicredit, recover funds that are past due. They make money off of lenders or creditors who have placed charge-offs on individuals’ credit reports. These entries on your credit report indicate that the lender has given up collecting a debt.
This typically only occurs after several missed payments. Collection agencies can essentially be thought of as middlemen between borrowers and banks, credit card issuers, or personal loan lenders.
A notice from Medicredit, or any collection agency for that matter, is a bad sign. Any debt that has gone to collections negatively impacts your credit score. You’ll need to act fast to determine if the debt is truly yours, and if so, how to pay it off and remove it from your accounts.
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Is Medicredit a Legitimate Company?
Yes, Medicredit, Inc. is a legitimate company. It was founded in 1977 in Missouri and is still located there today. Medicredit is owned by the Outsource Group.
Medicredit Phone Number
Medicredit can be reached at (800) 888-2238.
What to Do if You See Medicredit on Your Credit Reports
It is important to keep in mind that a charge-off does not mean you no longer have to pay the debt. If you see a collection agency on your credit reports, payment is still owed. But rather than paying your original lender, you now must pay the collection agency — in this case, Medicredit.
Read each step below on navigating the debt collection process to make for smoother sailing:
Verify if It’s Legitimate
Before taking any other action, you must verify the legitimacy of both the debt and of the agency. While Medicredit is a real, legitimate collection agency, not everyone who contacts you will be.
Learning how to spot the real agencies from the fake ones is essential to protecting you and your financial information. The last thing you want to do is be the victim of identity theft.
Below are a few tactics to help identify if a collection agency is legitimate:
- Wait for a letter in the mail: Legitimate debt collectors will never give you phone calls without also sending mail. If you’ve received a phone call from a suspected debt collector, keep an eye on the mailbox.
- Ideally, you do not want to respond to a collector until you’ve received a physical letter.
- Remember to always engage in written communication so that you may leave a paper trail. These make it harder for collectors to go back on their promises.
- Ask for their contact information: Legitimate debt collectors will always share their contact information with you — such as their phone number, their address, and their company’s name.
- Get more information about the debt: Legitimate debt collectors will also always share information about the debt. Always ask for the name of the creditor seeking payment and for the amount owed.
- Companies that refuse to share this information are a cause for concern and should be dealt with carefully.
- Discontinue conversation with anybody claiming to be a creditor if they berate or threaten you.
- Do not share any personal or debt-related information until you have verified both the legitimacy of debt and of an agency/collector.
It is always possible that a legitimate collection agency will contact you, but that the debt in question is not yours or can otherwise not be collected on. If you suspect this is the case, request a validation of debts. This demands that they prove the debt is yours. Keep in mind that you only have 30 days after being notified of a debt to send the letter.
Pay It Off
If you’ve verified that the debt is yours, the next step is paying it off. There are several strategies for paying off debt, such as the snowball method. Remember that paying off the debt does not erase the collection account. Rather, the account will reflect as a zero balance. You’ll need to do a few other things before it’s permanently erased — continue reading to find out.
Speak to a Credit Counselor
If you’ve been repeatedly contacted by debt collectors, it may be a sign you need to repair your credit. But working with a collection agency alone can be a tricky process, especially if you’ve never done so before.
If you find yourself needing assistance, speak to a credit counselor. These professionals are here to lend a helping hand and act as someone who is on your side.
Credit counselors can help with collection removal, debt management, and general budgeting plans, among other forms of financial help. The best credit restoration providers will go above and beyond to help you save money.
How to Remove Medicredit From Your Credit Reports
How to go about removing Medicredit from your credit reports depends on if the debt was yours or not. If the debt was wrongly given to you, it should be a relatively easy process to have it removed. Debts that were truly yours involve a bit more work — after being paid off of course.
There are a few options for removing debts that are yours. One option is the good faith letter which removes late payments from your report. Write your collector a letter that states your reasons for having the debt removed from your reports. Goodwill deletion letters are not guaranteed to work, but nothing is lost in the process of mailing one.
Option number two is pay-for-delete, implying that payment on a debt will be exchanged for the removal of a collections account at the will of the debt collector. Pay-for-delete also involves writing your collector a letter.
Ideally, you’ll want to write a goodwill deletion letter before a pay-for-delete one. Pay-for-delete is generally considered unethical. Not often will you find a collector or a borrower engaging in the practice. Collection agencies are legally required to send accurate information to the credit bureaus.
If you are contacted by Medicredit, keep calm and remember your options. There are various solutions for working with a debt collector — so long as you know what’s available to you.
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