Can you dispute negative credit for debt belonging to ex-wife?
Received letter / payment demand from collection agency for a debt that I did not recognize.
NO DETAILS GIVEN. (?!?!?!?!?) So I initially thought it was a scam...
As a precaution, I pulled my credit report. It showed one account “in collection” from a hospital I’d never been to. (???????)
Called the hospital. They had a small account open in my name for service performed for my EX wife (divorce was finalized shortly after she -apparently- visited the hospital). That was the first I was aware that my wife (now my ex wife) had (apparently) visited that particular hospital. I don’t know why the account was in my name as opposed to my ex wife’s name, but anyway...
I asked the hospital why they had never sent me a bill. They said they had sent me several bills. So I asked them for the address they sent the bill to. It was an address I hadn’t lived at since LONG before my wife (supposedly) visited the hospital. So (of course) I never received the bills.
Consequently, through no fault of my own, and no fault of the hospital*…
An account ended up in collections before I even knew that a debt existed.
I offered to pay the bill, but the hospital would not accept payment. They suggested I pay the collection agency.
Considering this was my ex-wife's debt and I had no reasonable way to know that a debt was owed even, can I get this deleted from my credit report?
*My ex-wife had insurance, so why was the account in my name? Also, where did they get the OLD address???