Forgot to update my address and it cost me $280 in denied claims

Last month I moved to Austin and thought I had updated my address with everyone. Turns out I missed my credit card company. My $450 medical bill got sent to collections because the statement went to my old place and I never saw it. By the time I caught it, my credit took a 35 point hit from the collection notation. Has anyone else had this happen from a simple address screw up?

3 comments

3 Comments

river95217h ago

Read a Consumer Reports piece last year that said address errors are one of the top 3 reasons people land in collections, which blew my mind. A friend of mine had a similar situation where a small medical bill from a specialist went to an old address, and by the time they tracked it down, the collection agency had already reported it to all three bureaus. The worst part is you usually don't find out until you apply for something important like a mortgage or a car loan (always the worst timing). Some credit cards have a feature that flags mail returns as a possible fraud indicator, but apparently yours didn't catch it either. That $280 hit is brutal, sorry you're dealing with that nonsense.

xena_bailey181d ago

Used to think address mistakes were no big deal, just a quick fix and done. But after a similar thing happened to me with a car insurance payment, I totally changed my mind. Missed the notice about my rate going up because of a wrong zip code on file, and they let my policy lapse for nonpayment. That little oversight cost me a $150 reinstatement fee and my new insurance quoted me WAY higher because of the gap in coverage. So yeah, now I triple check everything related to my address after that expensive lesson.

claire_davis311d ago

My cable company once sent my final bill to an apartment I moved out of three years ago, then sent a collector after me for $12.67. I spent four hours on the phone proving I wasn't living there anymore.