Is DCM Services lowering your credit score?
If DCM Services or DCM Services LLC has recently appeared on your credit report, it’s probably to collect on a delinquent account.
Missed payments can result in collections accounts being added to your credit report. When this happens, your credit score could suffer.
Collections also result in frequent phone calls and letters, which can impact your daily life negatively.
The guide below will teach you more about how collections agencies work and provide you with clear instructions for getting a collections account deleted from your credit report.
How Does DCM Services Work?
While you may be questioning their legitimacy, DCM services is a credible debt collection agency.
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the agency has a slightly different focus than other debt collectors.
DCM Services LLC primarily helps businesses collect on the delinquent accounts of the deceased by targeting their estates.
They collect on debts in numerous industries, such as:
- Auto
- Healthcare
- Financial Services
- Retail
- Telecommunications
- Utilities
If your loved one passed away while carrying debt in one of the industry’s above, you could be contacted by DCM Services to settle the account.
Third-party collections agencies are called in when lenders and service providers are unable to collect payments from consumers.
When a debt enters the collections stage, a collections entry is added to the consumer’s credit report, or in this case, to the beneficiary of the deceased’s estate.
Collections agencies often purchase debts from businesses at a majorly discounted price. In other cases, they are hired to handle the collections process for a fee.
Collections entries stay on your credit report for 7 years, whether the debt is repaid or not. That’s why you need to follow the steps below to ensure it gets deleted ASAP.
The agency can also send you letters and call you regularly until a satisfactory payment is made.
If you are overwhelmed by dealing with negative entries on your credit report,
we suggest you ask a professional credit repair company for help.
Ask Lex Law for Help
How to Deal with DCM Services LLC
DCM Services has had a handful of complaints in recent years regarding their:
- Reporting
- Confidential information sharing
- Billing and customer service
These complaints can be seen on the BBB and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau websites.
In light of these issues, it’s important to educate yourself on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
This law prevents debt collectors from treating you unethically or making baseless claims regarding debts.
It sets clear boundaries for how and when debt collectors can contact you and requires them to provide adequate proof with their collection attempts.
It also allows you to halt the agency’s calls. You should send a letter by certified mail explaining that you know your rights under the FDCPA and wish to communicate in writing rather than over the phone.
Doing so will give you documentation of all of your discussions with the agency and could streamline the process of getting them off your credit report.
You can reach DCM Services at the address below:
7601 Penn Ave S, A600
Minneapolis, MN 55423
3 Ways to Remove DCM Services from Your Credit Report
While you may dread responding to DCM Services, you have to in order to improve your credit.
The steps below can help you get a collection agency removed from your credit report quickly and easily.
1. Ask for Validation
The FDCPA has your back once again, requiring collections agencies to provide evidence to validate their collection attempts.
As long as you mail in a debt validation letter within 30 days of being contacted by the agency, they have to present you with documentation of your loved one’s account.
If they are unable to do so, the entry will be deleted from your credit report, and the agency will stop contacting you.
This strategy is worth a shot whether you believe the debt is legitimate or not.
Third-party debt collectors do not always have adequate documentation to see their collections efforts through.
2. Arrange a Pay-for-delete Agreement
Whether you found this article a little too late or you submitted a debt validation letter and the agency responded by providing you with proof of the debt, your next best bet is to arrange a pay-for-delete agreement.
If you pay a collections agency what is owed without an agreement in place, their calls will stop. That is the good news.
The bad news, the collection entry will not be deleted from your report.
You must get the agency to agree in writing to have their entry removed when you make a satisfactory payment.
The agency might be willing to accept less than the amount owed to settle the account. A good starting point for your negotiation is 50% of the total.
Once you and the agency agree on an amount and you submit your payment, your credit reports should be updated fairly quickly.
Keep up by using a credit monitoring service.
If a month goes by and there is still no change to your report, you should contact DCM again.
Remind them of your agreement and ensure they report the payment as promised.
3. Get Professional Help
Confronting debt collectors about your own debt is challenging enough. Facing them regarding your deceased loved one can be even more emotionally taxing.
Many consumers turn to credit repair companies, trusting them to do the heavy lifting.
A credit repair company can dispute the debt, negotiate a payment, and get your credit score back on track.
But their services don’t stop there.
Credit repair specialists will take a look at your entire credit report, analyzing it for inaccuracies and pinpointing the biggest issues on it.
They’ll help you come up with a plan to improve your overall score.
They’re also well-equipped to help you bounce back from credit problems like:
- Bankruptcy
- Liens
- Judgments
- Inaccurate hard inquiries
- Repossessions
- Identity fraud
Consider reaching out to one of the best credit repair companies today to get started.
