Utility Sends My Account To Collection In Error... and cannot prevent negative credit reporting. Need help! (complaint, credit card)

[ShakyJ]

Need help with this one.

Unitil electric worked out a payment plan for me at my old address for a 6 month period. Payments were being made on time. Between 2nd and 3rd payment, I received a collection notice for defaulting on the payment plan... but I didnt default.

Unitil accepts bill pay payments. This was my first question to them when they worked out a payment plan. Problem is the payments are not electronic, and my bank mails a check when I use bill pay simply because Unitil is not part of the electronic process of bill pay. Now if I knew this, I could of just mailed a check myself or used a credit card on their site. Between mailing and bank processing time, they didnt get the payments for over 10 days from the date I paid. Because this was done twice in a row, they sent it to collections.

Speaking with the credit department at Unitil, Unitil tells me to work with the collection agency. They will work out a payment plan and it wont effect my credit as long as payments are made on time. Unitil stated they could not pull this from collections because collections owns it.. which of course isnt true.

Collections said they understood what happened and would be happy to continue the payment plan. However, they said they would put a negative on my credit and mark it paid once paid in full...but it is still a blem on my report. When I asked why, they told me it is Unitil Policy. When I explained to the collections supervisor what Unitil said, they disagreed. The collection supervisor says it is Unitil Policy to have the agency file a negative report on someones credit within 30 days if it hits collections. I asked the supervisor to put us on a 3 way call with her contact at Unitil to remedy this problem. She refused stating they dont have one or know whom that person is.

So payments were made on time by a payment method Unitil accepted. Unitil sent me to collections because the bill payment program ( which again they accept ), takes to long to process. Unitil says the collection agency controls negative reporting and vice versa.

All I know is right now I have a negative hitting my report, if not already. Both parties are pointing the finger at each other. I did nothing wrong and have the documentation to prove it. I used an approved payment method but I am being punished because that method takes to long to process on their side.

What should I do?

Thank you!

[Philip T]

Lawsuit.

[ShakyJ]

small claims crossed my mind, but want to avoid the hassle

[wheelsup]

When this happened to my wife I told them I wasn't paying until they removed it. Ball was in their court - either they remove the delinquency which was completely their error (sent bill to different name and address in another city) and they get paid or they don't and they don't get paid as the damage was done.

Simple as that.

[lumbollo]

Originally Posted by ShakyJ

What should I do?

Thank you!

This is state dependent, but it has been my experience that regulated power and telephone companies become very accomidating if you file a complaint with the state Utilities Commission (whatever it is called in your state). Get the names of the people who turned you down, tell them you are filing a complaint, and you will be including their names in the complaint.

This might wake them up a bit.

[ShakyJ]

AG's office... forgot about that one.

[kodaka]

Utility commissions, AGs and small claims courts are helpful if the collection agency or utility has actually done something wrong but I fail to see how that is the case here.

It doesn't matter how you pay your bill, you've got to make sure the payment arrives on time. If it doesn't, there are consequences. Anyone who sets up automatic bill pay can see which bills are paid by check and which ones are paid by electronic transfer. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that if the bill is paid by check, it is going to take longer to process and you need to set up the payment earlier to make sure it is paid on time.

It isn't the utility company or the collection agency's fault when a customer doesn't pay attention to their own payment arrangement and doesn't read their monthly statements to be aware of any issues with their account. The customer owns this responsibility and it is the customer's responsibility to resolve the debt--by paying it.

[k374]

You don't resolve this with the utility company but rather with the credit reporting agency citing an inaccurate negative report. The credit reporting agency will remove the negative item if you can prove that you sent the payment on time, but you need to have some proof. A negative report cannot be added until you are at least 30 days late because that is the minimum on all reports. Sending an account to collection after 10 days is highly unusual.

This is a reason I don't use any sort of Bill Paying system, I do things myself. I don't trust anyone else. Bill Paying is a completely worthless service anyway, most places have online payments that can be made in a few minutes.

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by ShakyJ

Need help with this one.

Unitil electric worked out a payment plan for me at my old address for a 6 month period. Payments were being made on time. Between 2nd and 3rd payment, I received a collection notice for defaulting on the payment plan... but I didnt default.

Unitil accepts bill pay payments. This was my first question to them when they worked out a payment plan. Problem is the payments are not electronic, and my bank mails a check when I use bill pay simply because Unitil is not part of the electronic process of bill pay. Now if I knew this, I could of just mailed a check myself or used a credit card on their site. Between mailing and bank processing time, they didnt get the payments for over 10 days from the date I paid. Because this was done twice in a row, they sent it to collections.

Speaking with the credit department at Unitil, Unitil tells me to work with the collection agency. They will work out a payment plan and it wont effect my credit as long as payments are made on time. Unitil stated they could not pull this from collections because collections owns it.. which of course isnt true.

Collections said they understood what happened and would be happy to continue the payment plan. However, they said they would put a negative on my credit and mark it paid once paid in full...but it is still a blem on my report. When I asked why, they told me it is Unitil Policy. When I explained to the collections supervisor what Unitil said, they disagreed. The collection supervisor says it is Unitil Policy to have the agency file a negative report on someones credit within 30 days if it hits collections. I asked the supervisor to put us on a 3 way call with her contact at Unitil to remedy this problem. She refused stating they dont have one or know whom that person is.

So payments were made on time by a payment method Unitil accepted. Unitil sent me to collections because the bill payment program ( which again they accept ), takes to long to process. Unitil says the collection agency controls negative reporting and vice versa.

All I know is right now I have a negative hitting my report, if not already. Both parties are pointing the finger at each other. I did nothing wrong and have the documentation to prove it. I used an approved payment method but I am being punished because that method takes to long to process on their side.

What should I do?

Thank you!

It is NOT true that "nobody can do anything" and that it is inevitable that this will negatively affect your credit score.

It's only true if you LET that happen.

What you do is you call each entity involved, explain clearly and succinctly what happened, and you make it very clear that you will be pursuing legal action if they don't get their act together.



Several years ago I found out that a Medical Clinic had turned us over to a collection agency. Said collection agency had filed a negative report against our credit.

What had happened is that this Medical Clinic - whom we had been going to and paying for several years, simply wrote the wrong address on a bill they sent to us. They were the ones who typed the wrong address onto our account, even though they already had the correct one there. Their bill got returned and, despite the fact that they had our phone number, they never called us. They just turned the bill over to collections.

The collection agency, likewise, never called us. They just filed against us, and it knocked 50 points of my credit score.

Among other things, I filed an official grievance with the Attorney General of our state. That really got their attention.


So... Let's just say that there were some VERY terse and pointed phone calls. And let's just say that - after both the clinic and collection agency said nothing could be done - suddenly the whole affair got dropped, and our credit score "magically" jumped up by over 50 points.


Just remember that none of these people are going to cooperate with you unless you FORCE them to.

[ShakyJ]

Originally Posted by kodaka

Utility commissions, AGs and small claims courts are helpful if the collection agency or utility has actually done something wrong but I fail to see how that is the case here.

It doesn't matter how you pay your bill, you've got to make sure the payment arrives on time. If it doesn't, there are consequences. Anyone who sets up automatic bill pay can see which bills are paid by check and which ones are paid by electronic transfer. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that if the bill is paid by check, it is going to take longer to process and you need to set up the payment earlier to make sure it is paid on time.

It isn't the utility company or the collection agency's fault when a customer doesn't pay attention to their own payment arrangement and doesn't read their monthly statements to be aware of any issues with their account. The customer owns this responsibility and it is the customer's responsibility to resolve the debt--by paying it.

Ahh, but that is the point. Bill pay tells me that Unitil will have the payment within 2 business days, which is more than enough time... and again I have the paperwork that shows this. If Unitil tells me that will accept bill pay, and bill pay tells me it is only a few business days for the payment to arrive, how am I suppose to know that Unitil does not accept electronic payments by bill pay and the actually payment will take longer to process because they have to mail it? Remember, I asked Unitil about bill pay and they said it was fine, citing that it will take a day or two to process. I was not informed that bill pay needs to send out a check for them or this mess would of been avoided. I asked and was given wrong information. Bill pay online tells me 2 business days, and that isnt true.

The Unitil payment plan does not send out statements and this is only after the second payment that this process wasnt working. My bank shows payments withdrawn and nothing was sent out by Unitil stating there was an issue. It just went to collections.