When my oldest was born 8 years ago, we had some issues with the hospital's billing. The insurance actually paid the hospital twice, but the hospital never zero'd out the balance after we paid our share. Every month for 6 months we would get a bill from the hospital stating we owed a varying amount (sometimes over $100, sometimes less). Every month my wife would go in to the hospital and try to figure out what was going on. After each visit the hospital said they'd fix their billing error, only to get a new bill with a different amount owed the next month. The hospital has since fixed this particular accounting nightmare, however not before sending us to collection for $6.

At the time we had a Discover card, which got wind of the collections attempt, and jacked up our credit from 9% to 23% in one fell swoop, even though we'd never been so much as late on a payment to them or anyone else. As soon as we got the Discover Bill we transferred the debt to another card and cancelled the card.

-Steve G.