I was contacted by IC systems approximately 1 month ago requesting payment for a debt that I had previously paid over 2 years. After I informed them of this, they indicated that because the company was based in NY XXXX, the state laws require the company to validate the debt first -- if they could not validate that the debt was not paid, there would be no additional action. At that time, the collection had not been reported to my credit report and I was explicitly told that if the company could validate that the debt was not paid, it would not be reported until I was contacted to provide additional verification. Approximately 1 month later, I was notified that there was a new collection placed on my credit report. When I called IC systems to inquire, the indicated that the debt was validated as still outstanding by the vendor so it was reported to the credit bureaus. After extensive discussion where I indicated that this was not the agreement made with the previous representative, I was told that they only way they could " delete '' the listing on my credit report was if I paid the debt but that this was a " XXXX time '' agreement and I needed to make the decision now. Because I had paid the debt previously, this amounted to extortion - I was forced to make a decision to pay the debt again or deal with ongoing disputes with credit agencies providing documents verifying the amounts ( which I have ) with not certainty that it would be removed. Given the lack of certainty and the fact that I was " forced '' to make a decision on the line, I opted to pay the debt. 

At this point, I have already paid the debt and hopefully this will be deleted from my credit reports as promised. That said, these practices at the least are extremely unethical and most likely illegal. First, misleading me about the process with respect to a dispute process and then posting to my credit report without informing me about the result of that process is bad business practice. Second, threatening that deletion would not occur if I did not pay over the phone is extremely disappointing and represent extremely questionable tactics on the part of the collection agency.