What can I do about my electric bill in collections?
In 2020 I was living in my parents home alone. I was on an unemployment and not collecting a lot of money and I was scared to tell my parents so I just prioritize paying their rent over the electric bill. I continued to fall behind for a few years until it racked up to a little over $6000. They finally cut off my power and told me that I couldn’t pay small amounts anymore. I had to pay the full bill or they wouldn’t turn my power back on.
By that point, my sister had moved in with me so she told me to close the account and she would open a new account in her name. And I, stupidly, forgot to do anything to attempt to take care of the $6000 bill I had in my dad‘s name. My dad‘s credit has been severely fucked for lack of a better word, and I just recently started receiving calls asking to speak to my dad in regards of the electric bill.
And I just received a text message saying that it went to collections. Normally, I would try to see if I could negotiate a lower settlement and pay it off myself but I recently had an extremely unexpected pregnancy in which I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was 37 weeks. And now I am not working and have no income. However, I don’t believe I can use that as a way of not paying considering the bill is in my father‘s name and not mine. Is there anything else I can do to attempt to rectify this? That way I can maybe help fix my dad’s credit and pay this off because I owe it to him.