Dell Financial- I called in to ask if I could change my payment date to the middle of the month and set up an automatic bank draft so I could pay off my debt. The customer service represntative said "yes", you but you have to set it up online". She told me how to do it, and successfully I set up an auto bank drafted payment on the middle of the month and they received it. HOWEVER, evidently their systems are not synchronized, because they started charging me late fees because it wasn't paid on the first of the month! They kept refusing to take those fees off there, even though I was making my payments on time every month, and I had followed their instructions to set it up online! After a year of arguing with them, and they refused to take off these unfair fees, I told them I would not pay another dime until they took off these fees, but would be glad to finish paying them off after they did so. They closed the account, sent it to collections, and it is a major derrogatory on my credit report. If they think this will get me to pay their unfair fees, forget it! Is there a way to get this off my credit report? The collection agency cannot find my payment history, and I contested this with the credit reporting agencies, but they haven't taken it off yet.

Dell Financial- I called in to ask if I could change my payment date to the middle of the month and set up an automatic bank draft so I could pay off my debt. The customer service represntative said "yes", you but you have to set it up online". She told me how to do it, and successfully I set up an auto bank drafted payment on the middle of the month and they received it. HOWEVER, evidently their systems are not synchronized, because they started charging me late fees because it wasn't paid on the first of the month!! They kept refusing to take those fees off of there, even though I was making my payments on time every month, and I had followed their instructions to set it up online! After a year of arguing with them, and they refused to take off these unfair fees, I told them I would not pay another dime until they took off these fees, but would be glad to finish paying them off after they did so. They closed the account, sent it to collections, and it is a major derrogatory on my credit report. If they think this will get me to pay their unfair fees, forget it! Is there a way to get this off of my credit report? The collection agency cannot find my payment history, and I contested this with the credit reporting agencies, but they haven't taken it off yet.

I don't suppose you happened to get the name of the customer service representative who "told you" that you could amend the terms of your contract? And I also am assuming that you got nothing in writing regarding this conversation? The issue is that you have absolutely no evidence that this conversation ever took place - if this goes to court, you're going to lose. You were late on payments, regardless of what someone told you over the phone. Because you were late, they charged you a late fee as agreed upon in your original contract.

Yes, there is a way to get it off your credit report: pay the debt and it will fall off after a few years. It is a waste of time contesting it because the debt is not incorrect - you agreed to pay the money and have now defaulted. The reasons have been heard by hundreds upon thousands of judges and it all sounds the same to them.

Your best bet at this point would be to try and negotiate some type of settlement with the collection agency. But before you do that, where are you located and when was the last payment made?

No name because I explained my desire to get the debt paid off, and she was happy to tell me how to change the due date and to do the autodraft. It clearly shows on my account, and my bank statement when this took place. From that date that my bank sent regular payments every month. Suze Orman has named DFS as an unethical lender I found out recently. My original debt was only 800.00 but these fees jacked it up to over 1800.00! Tennessee, last pmt a long time ago, couple of years I think.

No name because I explained my desire to get the debt paid off, and she was happy to tell me how to change the due date and to do the autodraft. It clearly shows on my account, and my bank statement when this took place. From that date that my bank sent regular payments each and every month. Suze Orman has named DFS as an unethical lender I found out recently. My original debt was only 800.00 but these fees jacked it up to over 1800.00! Tennessee, last pmt a long time ago, couple of years I think.

It's important to write down the date and time, as well as the name of the person you spoke with. Otherwise, it's just a consumer saying, "Well, I shouldn't be penalized because someone, somewhere, told me something." That's not a defense.

Just because you set up payments to automatically be made on a certain date doesn't change the terms of your agreement. I could do the same thing on my credit card bill; it doesn't mean that my payments go from being due on the 5 to being due on the 30th - it only shows that I set up automatic payments.

You may have sent out monthly payments, but you were still late. Look at it this way: let's say that you wanted your payments to start being due on the 15th starting in the month of January, so you scheduled your first payment on January 15th. In reality, your payment was still due on the 1st, so it showed up as being late and they assessed a fee. When you made the January 15th payment, it was applied to the January 1st payment. When February's payment was due, you were late again... It continued like that.

The reason I ask for your location and the date of last payment is to determine if the statute of limitations has expired on this debt. Tennessee has a 6 year SOL:
Tennessee Statutes of Limitations (http://www.statuteoflimitations.net/tennessee_statute_of_limitations.htm)
And you said it was only a few years ago, so they may still be allowed to sue you for this debt.

And just to throw my two cents in: nobody cares what Suze Orman thinks. I don't, and a judge isn't going to either.

Had you paid one payment ahead, and then paid the middle of the month, it would have worked.

After you became aware of it happening, did you stop the auto payment and start making the normal payments on time ?

And dell has a history of suing for thiee debts.
And this would have showed up in the statements so after the first month you would have been aware of it.