Yeah, that would be the reason the collector wanted it paid that day. She probably knew you hadn't got the letter yet and upsold you.

It's not technically a scam, it just sucks you didn't negotiate a longer term to pay the amount when she was pushing for that day.

No, you can't do anything, she was being a good collector by holding out. A bad collector would have agreed to the principle owing. Technically, you owe principle and interest-so $1600 because you waited so long to deal with it. The collector must have known that you where desperate to get it off your credit bureau.

If the debt was bought I believe those rules will not apply under the collection act. If the difference is a few hundred dollars and you get your release letter I think its best to move on unless you want to stress yourself out for a few months fighting the matter.

I didn't get a letter from the original creditor saying I could pay $706, I actually got that from the collection agency as a settlement with them. does that matter? They bought my debt for pennies on the dollar and just made probably 10 times the amount they paid on it. I'm from PEI and I read on our collection agencies rights and responsibilities of Consumers act today that the collector can't collect more then I owe the creditor so technically isn't what they done illegal? Are they allowed to charge interest on a debt after it was bought?

If you contact the creditor and you have a letter of proof stating that you could have paid $706.00 to settle your debt; the creditor should put the pressure on the collection agency to return the difference. I had a collection agency charge me more and I received a letter from the creditor for less after I settled and I end up getting the difference back.

So debt finally caught up with me as I attempted to clean up things so I could purchase a house - long story short - was young, in college and screwed my credit - now that i'm working, I wanted to settle things and fix my credit. I started with CRS - I was originally owing $883 and with the 3 years of interest, it was up to $1678. After reading several stories on here, I called them and offered them a $500 settlement and for the account to be marked as paid. The girl refused to send the offer in, saying "they would only laugh at me". I then offered to pay the principle of $883 and she still refused so after over an hour, we settled verbally on a balance of $1000 which had to be paid that day. I went to the bank to pay it, she faxed a letter from them saying that if i paid the $1000 that day, my account would be marked as paid in full and reported immediately to the credit bureaus. Seemed simple enough except I got a letter in the mail today from them that was dated April 4th, (8 days prior to my original contact to them) offering to have the account paid as satisfactory for $706!!! Now I am pissed off because when I volunteered to pay the full priniple balance of $883, she denied allowing me to do that and then they offered me an even less deal via letter. Now i've paid $300 more then I needed to them which I could have used towards my other collection accounts. Should there not have been something on my file at the time I called saying they recently sent me a letter saying they would accept $706 as a payment??? Has this ever happened to anyone else or is there anything I can do now?