In Nov or Dec 2002, Sprint was my long distance carrier(Ohio). A charge for a call that was not made from my house appeared on my bill. I disputed the call with Sprint, by phone and by mail, but was assured that their computers did not make mistakes and that the call was made from my home or it wouldn't have been billed to my account. It is only myself and my husband, and neither of us made the call that was supposedly made to one of those 'middle of the ocean' phone numbers that charge $10 a minute to talk to psychics (psychos) and such.
In May of 2003, Sprint turned the account ($113) over to NCO financial for collection. On May 27, 2003 I sent NCO the facts as I knew them, and heard nothing more from Sprint or NCO since. No letters to me, no requests for payment, no reports of any kind to any of the three main credit bureaus.
In December 2007, Sprint evidently turned this five-year old receivable over to Harvard Collections, who has now put a 'collection account' on my credit report. My credit score has dropped from 775 to 648.
In other treads here and in all the information I could dig up on fixing credit reports, having this item removed seems to hinge on whether it is accurate.
No, I did not pay the $113 bill, and I never will, because it was never my liability to begin with. There was no way to prove Sprint's billing was in error then, and there sure isn't now. Is there any point in trying to dispute this with the credit bureaus? If not, will this derogatory information off my credit report after 7 yrs? Can something that has never been reported to any credit bureau for 5 years suddenly be pulled out of the hat and thrown out now?

