In July of 2007, my husband and I pulled both our credit reports - from all three agencies - and paid EVERYTHING that was in collection. We have since learned that there's a medical collection that didn't get paid - because it wasn't on our reports!

We are in Wisconsin.
We lived at Address A from July 1998 - August 2002.
We lived at Address B from August 2002 - October 2005.
We lived at Address C from October 2005 - April 2007.
We have lived at address D since April 2007.

The medical bills in question were incurred at our local (at the time) hospital in the spring of 2004, while we were living at Address B. I have verified with the CA that the hospital submitted the charges to them with Address B on them (I asked what address the hospital gave them when they send the charges, and the CA gave me Address B ).

When I spoke with them last week, the CA told me that they initiated all collection activity on these charges using Address A, which they claim was "the last known address" they'd had on file for us. Which, as we know, is untrue - if the hospital submitted bills from Spring 2004 with Address B, how could Address A have been "the last known address?" Add to the fact that Address A is the residence of my in-laws, who both would have lost their minds if they saw anything from that CA in the mail (DH and I both went though a "young and dumb" phase years ago, so my in-laws are very well-acquainted with what mail from this particular CA looks like). Plus, I'm sure if I look hard enough, I might be able to find mail from the CA postmarked around that same time that has Address B on it.

Also, the CA did not receive these charges from the hospital until January 2006, by which time, we were already living at Address C. However, we'd only moved 2.5 months prior, and had they sent the notices to the address the hospital had given them in the first place, the notices would have been forwarded to us and the CA would have been notified of the new address.

These accounts were not on either of our credit reports from any of the three bureaus in July 2007, nor were they present on either of our reports from any of the three bureaus in May 2008, which is the last time we pulled our reports. So this CA negligently used an ancient address and sat on these bills for what amounts to be almost 2.5 years before reporting them to the bureaus.

I spoke with the CA last week and was told that since they'd never heard anything back from us that they'd stopped all activity on the debt. Until, of course, sometime in the last 9 months, they finally got around to reporting it to the bureaus.

Since the CA was negligent in both pursuing AND reporting this collection, coupled with the fact that we've made every effort possible to clear up our credit within the last two years, is there anything that can be done to dispute this, or have it removed from our history? Anything? It would have been paid in July 2007 (at the latest) had we known about it. But at that point, the CA had already sat on it for 18 months. The hospital is also notorious for refusing direct payments on accounts that have been sent to collection, but I'm so livid with the CA right now that I'm not sure I can remain professional if I have to talk with them.

I'm just ready to cry. For the last 19 months, my husband and I have been confident that since we'd paid our outstanding bad debt in July 2007, our credit would look better and better all the time, and now we've suffered this hit. And once we get this cleared up, how do we know that something like this won't happen again in another two years?

Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

EDIT TO UPDATE: Just after I posted this, I went over some paperwork I had from my financial institution. When we paid everything off in July of 2007, my financial institution was the one to cut and mail all the checks. The CA in question on this particular issue was one of the CAs who received a check (for a different bill). So they've had our information since July of 2007, at our current address, and have made no attempt to contact us.