10 years ago I made a $120 purchase on a USAA credit card for a service. The company went out of business before I could receive the service. I disputed the charge with my USAA credit card and they preemptively reduced my balance by $120. Before the reduction went through I had a $20 balance on the credit card from that month. After the reduction my balance was reading -$100. I then stopped using the credit card for many years and I forgot about it.

5 years ago I noticed I had a negative balance and I wanted to close my account since I didn’t use it. So I called USAA to try to get the $100 turned into cash. After around 10 hours on the phone with 5 different departments over the course of a year I decided I didn’t care and gave up.

6 months ago I decided to change banks entirely (I also had a USAA checking) so I called them to close all my accounts (I did not care about the $100 at this point). They closed both my checking and credit card.

2 months ago I got a letter in the mail that I missed a $20 payment on my USAA credit card. I was extremely confused how I could miss a payment on a closed account and I called USAA. After 5 hours on the phone again with 5 different apartments I was told to call a debt collection number during business hours.

I was busy so I forgot about it again. Yesterday I got a notification from Chase that my credit score has dropped. It dropped 100 points from 750 -> 650 b/c of 2 missed payments.

Today I called a debt collection number and they informed me that my dispute was actually ‘pending’ for ten years and when I closed the account they closed the dispute not in my favor. I ended up paying the balance (/w interest) to stop getting the hit to my credit score.

What should I do? How bad is it that I lost 100 points on my credit score? How long will it take that to go away? Is it possible to explain this to the credent agencies? Was it a mistake to pay it off? I was tired of dealing with USAA.

I appreciate any help. Thanks.