It happens to everyone: You’re having a great day and then you get a bill in the mail — a bill for something that happened months or even years ago. A plumber’s bill, a hospital bill — any company can suddenly think you owe them money for something you might not even remember.
Invoices: what you need to know
When a bill is this old, your first thought might be: Do I really need to pay this? It’s not unreasonable to expect and assume that companies will bill you in a timely manner, and it’s perfectly normal to forget about a debt if a bill doesn’t arrive until years later. On the other hand, there’s usually no legal requirement that bills be sent in a timely manner, so companies can absolutely bill you months or even years after the fact. If it’s medical debt, there’s the added confusion of insurance coverage and the challenge of understanding the bill in the first place. Here’s how to tell if you really need to pay that old bill.
It’s not fun, but it’s time to dig into those old bank and credit card statements. If you don’t have paper copies on file, banks and credit card companies will keep your old statements on their servers for a while (usually about seven years), and you can usually contact them to order old statements if needed. Just be aware that there may be a fee, especially if you’re no longer a customer.
If you find out that you have already paid the bill, gather your information (check number, date of payment, any receipts you still have) and write to the company that sent you the bill. Tell them that you do not acknowledge the debt and explain that it has already been paid.
