Payment to a collection agency

[jcp2]

Last year i paid a 150 dollar bill to a collection agency that should have not even been sent. My insurance should have picked up the bill as was told to me by my dentist. I did not even know i was being sent. I paid the bill as soon as it was sent as i did not want to impact my credit. It obviously did. My credit is in the high 600's to the low 700's depending on which agency you use. I just took out another credit card as i only had my mortgage and amex on my credit report and i was told i should have 3 items of credit. I have no late payments and no cc debt. I also had 800+ credit a few years ago. Is there aniy way i can get this settlement off my credit. I realize after reading this forum i probably should have had them agree to remove it before i paid. I thnk i want to refi my mortgage this year and i want my credit as clean as possible. If i cannot get this off, is their a way i can get my credit up in the next few months. I am not cash strapped or in debt as i said.

[Lian]

Paying it neither harmed nor helped, as FICO does not score the payment or non-payment of debt, per se.
The type of payment that has an adverse effect is a settlement for less than the full amount of the debt, as it results in a negative comment to that effect being reported to your credit file.

I would not consider paying it as having been a mistake, as it got the debt collector off your back. Yeah, a PFD attempt may have resulted in CR deletion in exchange for payment, but that is water over the dam now. If the debt was legitimate, and thus not properly disputable as an incorrect reporting per se, you are relegated to asking the debt collector for good-will deletion of their negative reporting. Some debt collectors are more willing to delete than others.

While the OC who referred it to collection cannot compel the debt collector to delete prior credit reporting, you might give a go at asking the OC, apparently a dentist, to give the debt collector a call and ask them to give you a break. The debt collector is the client of the OC, so a call from them might have more impact than a simple GW from you.