Hello, I have a "lease" for a point of sale machine through Merimac Leasing.  A year ago I switched banks when I closed my business and I forgot to inform them of the new account.  This resulted in me being late 1.5-2 months.  I called them after realizing my mistake and paid them the back payments and set up automatic payments through my new account.  Everything has seemsed fine for a year now.  I just bought a car and suddenly these people have marked my credit as my payment being a part of a collection action!  I call Merimac to find out what this is about and they said "You were in default by being late in 2008, thus it resulted in a collection, and we will not remove that from your credit until the lease is expired"  I said i had no knowledge of collections and she said "We have a right to report just as any other company" and insists that even though my normal payments are being taken as always that because I was late a year ago it is all "collections" and she can demand I pay in full at any time.....even though there is nothing like that in the lease.  Since this is the original party can they say it is collections on my credit report like that?  They never notified me of any of this.  This entire operation seems illegal, but this really smells funny to me.....