do i need to pay the debt collector when i made an agreement with the creditor

by louise
(west midlands)

Hi i cancelled an aol account before my contract was due to expire. they advised me i had to pay a fee of which i agreed with aol to settle at 20.00 pcm. they verbally accepted and 1st payment was made, however since this agreement was accepted they have referred my case to roxburghe debt collectors i tried to make my second payment via aol as agreed but they refused it and said i need to contact roxburghe and pay their charges on top. is this correct procedure when i agreed to make payments? All i keep receiving is threatening letters from roxburghe.

Reply from DebtCollectionAnswers.com:

Louise,

Without a written agreement, it's hard to prove that they reneged on their verbal agreement. You can try appealing with AOL but we're not sure how far that will get you. We wish we had a surefire way for you to resolve this, but you'll probably spend a lot of time and energy trying to fix it.

And it may have already been reported on your credit reports. (Check them at AnnualCreditReport.com). Depending on how much money is involved, it may be easiest to try to get the collector to agree to not report it if you pay it. Get it in writing before you pay them a penny. Depending on what else is on your credit reports, keeping this collection account off your credit may be worth more than trying to fight the bill.