Debt from the start. Great.

food4pirate

hey guys, newbie here. i have a story to share and any advice would be much appreciated. i don't have anyone that is good with money in my life so i turn to the internet.

When i was 19 i was preparing to go on a mission for my church. One of the requirements is my wisdom teeth had to be pulled. My parents checked with their insurance and insurance said that as long as it happened before the end of the month that my birthday was in. After i got my teeth pulled my dads job came back and said that their policy was that it ends on my actual birthday. And turns out before i got it done, the practice knew insurance wasn't going to cover it. But it still happened. I find out that I've got a bill of 2000 bucks. my parents (who aren't good with money) kind of blew it off. so i didn't think it was a big deal. Fast forward to the present and I'm 23 and have paid half the debt but intrest has really bumped it up.

So that's the general story. Just tonight i get a credit report and its bad. Now i will admit all of this happened because of my ignorance and denial that i had to pay this off. But i need to take this problem down and prevent anything from ever happening again.

so i have a few questions:

1. what is my best course of action?
2. because so much time has passed since the debt was born, do i have any legal standing? i also lack evidence such as letters(mom and dad threw them out) from the insurance and dads job.
3. is there anyway i can talk the debt collectors down where i pay the original price and close the account?

Thank you so much for future help.

ceh209

Can I ask, are you in the UK?

Your style of writing and the things you talk about make me think you're in the US? As obviously this will affect the advice you need to be given, and this is a UK site so no one will probably know about US law in that much detail...