Collection Agency

Collection Agency 1- Gym contract
They don't play. I am sucker when it come to joining things unfortunately. I now finally starting to say NO, but before I learned to say no I decided to do a gym membership contract (bad idea). The owner said if I were to move out of town it will be cancel. I move out and it wasn't cancel. It went straight to a collection agency. I did make a settlement before it went to my credit score. So I am happy about that, but upset about the whole thing. DO NOT DO CONTRACT!! There soo many gyms out there that you can do month to month with no contract. Do not get pushed/bullied by the people about "how good the deal is" or "why not, why not, and why not" or "its only 30 bucks a months", "its nothing, you pay do it","think longterm"... NO NO NO NO two letter, one syllable, one word so simple yet we don't say it because we scared. well I was since I got suckered in. I unable to say no. I said maybe, let me think about it, but i should have said no. so simple yet far from my head. That guy was persistent and did not let me leave the gym without saying yes and once I said yes wow did those paperwork go fast. So many signatures and BOOM one year contract! bully I tell you! a big built bully! I am now making two payments of 185 to a collection agency because of me! not the bully because I could have just said no, but I blame myself.
Collection agency is another story. they are mean and do not, I repeat do not want to be your friend. they want your money and are going to call you up to five times a day to get it. Im lucky that did not happen to me because I decided to settle on the first phone call. I also did not know my gym membership went to collection till they called me and was not ready to destroy my credit again. march 2nd will be my last payment and i will make sure they are deleted from my checking account because i don't trust anyone with my hard earned money. i should have sent them a money order or a check according to articles, but it was too late.

Collection Agency 2- Medical
Now this one is soooo not my fault. I went on a mission trip to Nicaragua. It was actually a medical mission trip and I came back sick. I had to go to cdc and a tropical disease doctor! so many doctors appointments and medications. This trip was four years ago!! I sent all my bills to the school. Majority of the bill was all the labs and Dr appointments. The school said that my trip/school insurance should pay for it. NEGATIVE! They did not pay and for years it went not being paid. Guess who is paying for it now. THIS GUY! Four years later I am called by a collection agency letting me know my unpaid balance from my medical bills. I told them my story and they really didn't care. It did affect my credit score unfortunately without me knowing, but i am now paying for it $1600. I have paid off $1000 so far and have one more payment at the end of march for $527, but will pay early with my emergency fund. This sucked balls, but i learned that when you get a bill make sure you know what happen to that bill. check if it got paid or not. don't just forget about it.

tip 1- pay it off fast- Do not do 20 payments of $10 dollars. Figure out a way to pay it off fast. I will be using my emergency fund since i don't want it to ruin my credit anymore. I also would say pay it off fast by selling stuff or working an extra shift.

tip 2- no credit cards- The lady said i should use my credit card and then pay my credit card monthly and built my credit. NEGATIVE! no no no i will pay with my debit card because thats my money that i worked for. Im very lucky to be staying at my gf parents house for free for a month (transitioning job) so the money for the rent went to pay off the agencies. Do not let this stupidity happen to you!

tip 3- check if it was paid- Do not just give it to someone else and forget about it. But check that insurance company paid for it or not. I did not.

tip 4- do not give them the story- they don't care about how you got to a collection agency. they just care how you going to pay for it. so just be straight forward about payment plans and try to pay as much as you can, as fast as you can.

March- Collection agencies- PAID total=$1926