Clearing a $0 balance "bad debt" from credit report (Canada)

After being dicked around by Equifax Canada, I finally got my credit report yesterday.

Very, very interesting stuff. Given how I used to never pay utility bills until I was within 48 hours of being cut off kind of thing, I expected it to be pages and pages long.

Nope. The only things listed (aside from a matter of public record) were a MasterCard I paid off in 2000, and a Visa I paid off in 1998. Thing is, the MasterCard listing shows I have a balance of $0, but that it’s a bad debt, i.e. I skipped town, and they wrote it off, or it’s in collection. Now, I have proof from the bank in question that the debt was paid in full in 2000, and the account closed, and that I definitely did not skip town.

I know that I have to send all of this to the credit bureau… but this is what puzzles me (bolding mine):

So Bank of Montreal MasterCard is reporting that my account is still in collection, last payment made in 1998 (not in 2000 when I paid it off and the account was closed).

Do I now contact BoM MC to send them the proof (from them) that my account was paid as agreed in 2000? They’re still reporting a bad debt, as if I skipped town.

Royal Bank Visa, on the other hand, reports me as R1 - paid as agreed and up to date, balance $0, account closed, etc.

Shouldn’t my MasterCard be reported likewise? How can Equifax fix what’s being reported to them by creditors? They just record it, right? In this case, shouldn’t I be getting the creditor to report it as being paid?

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

A friend of mine recently discovered that an old debt he had paid off was still listed as uncollected. It was a bank VISA. He contacted the bank directly. They checked his old account and found that it was indeed paid off. They said that they would submit the necessary info to Equifax to clear it up and apologized. He’s going to wait a couple of months and check it again.

Absent that solution, I believe you are also permitted to add a note to any item listed on your report. Perhaps it would be a potential last-ditch effort.