NCO Financial is a collection agency. They collect for retail, financial services, healthcare and other industries.
They started doing business in 1926 and are both first and third party debt collectors.
They are headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania. They currently have over 140 operation facilities spread out over 9 countries.
There mission statement says they are customer oriented and committed to integrity, teamwork and quality.
NCO Financial participates in credit reporting. Another way of saying this is they can create a negative listing on your credit report and cause your score to be damaged.
There is hope; you can have this listing removed. There are two options to have a listing removed from your credit report.
1. Directly dispute the listing with the credit bureaus.
This is accomplished by sending a dispute letter to the credit bureaus or you can hire a credit repair firm to dispute the listing for you.
If you do this yourself you must send a dispute letter to each credit bureau disputing the validity of the negative listing. Common reasons for a dispute are: the account has been paid, not your account, the listing is inaccurate and etcetera.
2. You settle the debt with NCO Financial. I suggest disputing the listing first and if that does not work then explore a settlement offer.
You do not have to pay the full balance with your settlement. I would suggest starting your offer at 50% of the balance of the outstanding debt.
You should have NCO Financial agree in writing to remove the negative listing on your credit report as part of the settlement agreement. If you do not do this paying the debt will not help your credit score. The listing will remain it will just be changed to a paid collection.
Be aware that NCO Financial is probably not alone in reporting this account on your credit report. The original creditor is probably reporting this account as a negative listing as well.
It is common for collection agencies to sell accounts that they are unsuccessful collecting on. Thus NCO may have sold your account to another collection agency that has created a negative listing on your credit report too.
If your account is being reported by multiple agencies then I suggest hiring a professional credit repair company. This is a good idea because by paying one agency it will not remove all the negative listings.
If the debt is legitimate and you decide to settle do not pay the full balance. Collection agencies buy delinquent accounts for pennies on the dollar. If you pay the full amount you will be giving the collection agency a big profit.
Be aware that NCO only has the authority to remove a negative listing that they have created. They will not be able to remove any other listings that have been created by other companies even if it is for the same debt.
I strongly recommend keeping all communication with NCO in writing. This way if the agreement you have made is breached you have written proof of the original settlement agreement.
In sum, dispute the listing first and if unsuccessful then make arrangements to settle your account. Get in writing that the listing will be removed from your credit report in exchange for payment.
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