Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input.

A debt collector will not allow me to pay a debt, what steps should I take?
This is somewhat unbelievable.  I mean if you had a business of collecting debts, wouldn't you want to collect said debts?  Rather than attempting to browbeat people with these delinquent debts into paying, you have someone volunteering to pay.  Would you want to service that client?  This would not happen in just about any other industry, but such is the lunacy of debt collecting. The big question is why do you need this cleared off your credit?  If it is just for a credit score, it probably is not as important as your more recent entries.  I would just wait it out, until 7 years has passed, and you can then write the reporting agencies to remove it from your credit. If you are attempting to buy a home or similarly large purpose and the mortgage company is insisting that you deal with this, then I would do the following: Write the company to address the issue.  This has to be certified/return receipt requested.  If they respond, pay it and insist that it be marked as paid in full on your credit.  I would do this with a money order or cashiers check.  Done. Dispute the charge with the credit reporting agencies, providing the documentation of no response.  This should remove the item from your credit. Provide this documentation to the mortgage broker.  This should remove any hangup they might have. Optional:  Sue the company in small claims court.  This will take a bit of time and money, but it should yield a profit.  There was a post on here a few days ago about how to do this.  Make part of any settlement to have your name cleared of the debt. It is counterproductive to fall into the trap of the pursuit of a perfect credit score.  A person with a 750 often receives the same rate options as a person with 850.  Also your relationship with a particular lender could trump your credit score. Currently I am "enjoying" the highest credit score of my life, over 820.  Do you know how I did it?  I got out of debt (including paying off the mortgage) and I have no intentions of ever going into debt for anything.  So why does it matter?  It is a bit ridiculous.