[wdfifteen]

Does anyone here know anything about collection agencies? Last fall I got a bill from my electric company for a reconnection fee and new deposit for an account that they canceled for me. I still owed them about $18 for electricity and I told them to send me a bill without the recon fee and deposit on it and I'd take care of it. The idiots turned it over to a collection agency.
Waging hate mail wars with people like credit card companies is a bit of a hobby of mine, but I've never dealt with a collection agency before.
I have already responded to two dunning notices by telling them I dispute the claimed charges. I assume ignoring them is not the best thing to do, and I doubt that they would ever do anything rational like ask me WHY I dispute the charges - the electric company never bothered to. All I can do is keep disputing the charges. Where do these things typically go from here?