I never received a single bill or notice of collection from Franklin Collection Services. I learned of it when I got a negative credit report notification. When I saw the collection on my credit report (the first I had heard of this bill, and in the middle of buying a house), i called them to inquire re: what company I owed money to. They told me it was XXXX. I then said thanks, I will contact them directly to sort out the situation, to which the woman on the phone said, "they won't talk to you about this bill. The only way to get this to go away is to pay us." To which I said, "well, I can't have this show up on my credit report because I'm in the middle of buying a house." She continued to reiterate that I had no choice but to pay them if I wanted to be able to close escrow on my house and that the company I owed money to wouldn't talk to me. This collection company had XXXX phone numbers listed on my account and according to the representative, they had been calling the primary number for the past month. I don't know where they got that phone number, because it is my parents' phone number, and I never give that number as a point of contact because calls there will not reach me. There is absolutely no record of this company trying to call the primary phone number she claims. They left XXXX voicemails. She admitted that they never even tried calling the XXXX number they had on file, which is my correct personal phone number. I hung up with Franklin Collection and called XXXX anyway. The whole situation is made even more ridiculous because I have a current account with XXXX, associated with my same name, telephone number, and Social Security number as the past account. In addition, I have been physically in the XXXX store, talking to an associate about my current account, multiple times during the past XXXX. I have also gotten multiple emails from XXXX regarding my current account. It is hard for me to believe that they could not contact me about this bill in any fashion other than sending a piece of paper to a very old address and then sending me on to a collection company. XXXX apologized about the situation and for not contacting me about the bill. I paid the amount owed (all of this for only $XXXX!) and they promised to contact the collection company to have them remove this from my credit report. The collection account was not in fact removed, and still shows up on my report.