<prompt> Human: Cleaning up your act can be so confusing sometimes!! I feel like Im walking a battlefield here. Looking for advice.. Im working on slowly paying off my debt and I received a settlement offer for a 1300 account I had with Verizon Wireless many years ago to be paid off for 500 dollars by tomorrow. The account shows on my credit report as in collection. The settlement letter came from a third party company that the collection agency who bought my debt Pinnacle hired out. I called the third party company that sent the letter to ask if I paid it if it would be removed from my credit report and he told me to call Pinnacle and ask them as they own it and then call him back but he def was encouraging me to pay. He wanted me to ask for him by name when I called back, to get the credit for my payment Im sure.I thought I had at least another year or two until the statute of limitations came up so I gave pinnacle a call and asked them if they would remove it from my CBR if I paid this settlement offer of 500 but the very nice gentleman said that they would not remove it but just list it was paid in full. He said they do not offer pay and deletes. But then he goes on to say the account shows it will be removed from my CBR on Aug 16th 2018 regardless if I pay or not.. I asked him when I went delinquent on the account and he looked it up and said Jan 2012, which that even confused him as Aug 2018 wouldnt quite be 7 years.. But he was really nice and he said that it was in my favor and the systems are going to remove it in Aug so I am lucking out. I then asked him if I should even pay it and he didnt flat out say no, he did however hint that he wouldnt pay it since its so close to coming off. I then asked what the likely hood of them garnishing my wages for it because Ive had that happen with other accounts and that is the number one thing I want to avoid mainly just for the sheer embarrassment at my job over it.. And he said it would be very unlikely that they would garnish for this account as Verizon has already sold it off and the type of account it is.I could really use the 500 to go towards my other debts so I dont want to just pay this one if it really isnt going to matter after Aug anyways. But Im just confused on why they would have Aug listed in their system as the fall off date when technically it should be Jan 2019 if my last payment was Jan 2012? And I DO NOT want a garnishment to happen. Would you pay the settlement or use the 500 towards a different debt like my credit cards or one other small collection account on my CBR I have from 2014?Thanks for your help!!  <response>: hmmm.I mean its already in collections, so I guess a few more months isnt going to do significantly more damage to your report. May as well just wait until then and see. Theyll offer you the settlement again at that time if it doesnt fall off. 