Is Wakefield & Associates, Inc getting your mood and your credit score down?

If you’ve been contacted by a debt collection agency, there’s a right and a wrong way to deal with them and get your credit back on track.

While picking up the phone and handing over your payment info might stop the agency’s incessant calling, it won’t necessarily help with repairing the damaging effects to your credit score.

It’s a disheartening thought knowing once a collection account hits the credit reporting agencies, it will take 7 years to remove the negative mark off your credit report. Don’t let threats of garnishment or other legal actions scare you.

Whether you forgot to pay a bill or think that Wakefield & Associates Collections might be contacting you by mistake, read on for some surefire strategies to get the agency off your phone and your credit report.

We’ve all had that medical bill or credit card bill slip through the cracks. I can help point you in the right direction, but keep in mind, I’m not associated with a law firm and therefore cannot give you legal advice.

3 Ways to Remove Wakefield and Associates from Your Credit Report

Simply ignoring Wakefield’s calls and letters won’t do you or your credit score any good, but paying off your debt outright might not improve your score either.

You have consumer rights through the FDCPA and FCRA. More on those down below.

Instead, give one of the strategies below a try to get the collection agency removed from your credit report.

  1. Send a debt validation letter
  2. Arrange a pay-for-delete agreement
  3. Hire a credit repair company

1. Send a Debt Validation Letter

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act requires debt collectors to provide you with proof of any debt they claim you owe.

As such, you may be able to get the agency off of your report with a simple debt validation letter.

Since a lot of the agency’s collections are for third-party debts, there’s a chance the agency doesn’t have the documentation it needs to validate their claim.

So whether you actually owe the debt that Wakefield is collecting or you were targeted by mistake, it’s always wise to start the credit repair process with a debt validation letter.

Unless the agency has the evidence it needs, they’ll have to stop contacting you and have the collections account removed from your credit report.

Just note that there is a deadline for debt validation. You have 30 days to send a letter to the agency, after which you’ll have to use one of the other strategies below.

I recommend using certified mail, leaving a paper trail to prevent a “your word against theirs” scenario.

2. Opt for a Pay-for-delete Agreement

If you’re outside of the one-month timeframe for submitting a debt validation letter or the company was able to verify your debt, you should consider making a pay-for-delete agreement.

As the name suggests, this arrangement involves you agreeing to pay a certain amount of what you owe to get the account deleted permanently.

It’s important to note here that simply paying your balance won’t make the collection entry disappear from your credit report.

Instead, you should negotiate an agreement with Wakefield and Associates, in writing, that clearly states the entry will be deleted from your report.

Since collections agencies are able to purchase debts for a bargain, they’re usually willing to negotiate a lower payment to settle your account.

To see success, you should start your negotiations at 50% of the full amount you owe Wakefield.

Once you’ve agreed upon an amount and made your payment, you should see the results on your credit report within a month.

If not, you should follow up with Wakefield to ensure the agency has reported your payment to the credit bureaus.

Get a Free Copy of Your Credit Report

3. Hire a Credit Repair Company

Dealing with a debt collection agency can be a frustrating, time-consuming, and downright miserable experience.

Whatever your situation is, you might want to consider working with a credit repair company.

These companies can help to improve your credit score, whether your score is hurting from an unpaid $50 cable bill or thousands of dollars of outstanding student debt.

They’ll handle all of your communications with Wakefield & Associates, disputing their claims, negotiating settlements, and stopping their pestering calls.

While you can certainly communicate with a debt collection agency on your own, a credit repair company like Credit Saint can simplify the process and get you the results you’re looking for quickly.

Whether you decide to DIY your credit repair or enlist the help of a credit repair company, don’t delay the process of improving your credit.

With the resources above, you can get Wakefield and Associates removed from your report in no time.

Is Wakefield and Associates Legit?

Are you being bombarded with calls and messages from Wakefield & Associates or www.wakeassoc.com?

If so, you might be asking yourself, is Wakefield and Associates legit?

While the collection company might seem scammy thanks to its aggressive communication tactics, Wakefield and Associates is a legitimate debt collector and is not a scam.

It has been accredited by the BBB since 2015 and currently has one out of five stars in customer satisfaction.

Wakefield and Associates, Inc, has been operating since 1986 and is headquartered at 10800 E Bethany Dr., Aurora, Colorado and has call centers located in Knoxville, Tennessee, Denver and Fort Morgan, Colorado, and Jefferson City, Missouri.

Other important contact information to mention is their phone number 1-800-264-9399.

The company has over 100 employees and netted more than $30 million in the United States in debt collections last year.

The debt collections agency can appear under several other names on your credit report, including:

  • Wakeassoc
  • Wakefield associates
  • Wakefield collections
  • Wakefield payment solutions
  • Wakefield rrc
  • Wakefield & assoc

How Does Wakefield and Associates Work?

Wakefield and Associates provides several forms of debt collection services, including first-party, third-party, and early-out collections.

The agency buys third-party debts from service providers in several industries for pennies on the dollar, profiting on its collections.

These include:

  • Commercial services
  • Educational institutions
  • Financial services
  • Healthcare services
  • Property management

If one of your past payments slipped through the cracks, Wakefield & Associates can legally call and write to you until you settle your outstanding balance.

They can also place a collections account on your credit report, which could lower your credit score significantly.

A collections account can stay on your report for as long as 7 years, even if you pay the full amount you owe.

The impact of a collections account entry lessens over time, but getting an account removed is still an important part of improving your credit score.

With the steps featured below, you can be sure that Wakefield gets removed from your credit report ASAP.

Dealing with Wakefield and Associates

Like all debt collection agencies, Wakefield and Associates is not a stranger to complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Commonly cited complaints are related to the agency’s harassing communication, inaccurate reporting, and lack of response to debt validation letters. Often people ask will Wakefield & Associates Collections sue me?

Before you reach out to the agency, you should familiarize yourself with your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

The act holds collection agencies accountable for how they communicate with you, providing you with a list of rights.

For instance, the act keeps agencies from contacting you at unreasonable hours, harassing you at your workplace, reaching out to your relatives and employers, and more.

One of the most important provisions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is your right to determine how collections agencies communicate with you.

You should always communicate with debt collectors by mail rather than over the phone as it provides documentation of your interactions that can be important to getting the collections entry removed from your report.

It can also provide you with peace of mind, putting a stop to their persistent phone calls.