Finance House

I have 2 collection agency items on my credit report.

One was put there from a Bank of America account - which I had actually paid to B of A through a cashier's check but was somehow lost. They then sent it to the agency so I contacted B of A and they had the payment sent again. The status is now showing up as a Paid/Closed collection account even though I paid through B of A.

The second one was an account that was sold to the collection agency from Cingular. I last had Cingular 3 years ago. When I closed the account in a Cingular store, they told me I was all paid in full. Apparently, that was not correct and they sent bills to the address on file, but I had moved to a new address and never recieved the bills. They never even tried calling me at the number I moved from Cingular to my new cell service. I just noticed the collection agency item on my credit report last month and called them. I eventually paid the amount after confirming it with Cingular, but I had to pay through the collection agency. It is now showing as "Paid in settlement/collection account" and the creditor's statement says, "Account legally paid in full for less than full balance."

Do these things do significant damage to my credit score? Is there anything I can do to remove them?

Well I have been reading around the threads more and have done a lot of searching, but I still need some help.

For one of the 2, is it possible to get it removed somehow since I paid the OC rather than the CA?

For the other, I can't find anything in the forums about what to do if you have already paid the CA, but didn't get a pay-for-deletion letter beforehand. Is there anything I can do now?

Was the original cashier's check a timely payment on a revolving account? If so, you could claim their failure to post timely was a violation of FCBA.

No it was not a timely payment. I had a checking account open, withdrew all my funds, and thought that it was closed. I then had some sort of auto-payment take money from the account, which incurred a fee. I didn't know about this until months later, when I went to a B of A branch and made the payment.

Just a note - I just recieved a letter from Afni, the CA handling the 2nd collection (from Cingular) saying that the account has been settled in full. I now realize that I should have gotten them to agree to delete the account from my report, but I didn't know that at the time. Any ideas of what I can do for that one?