Who to pay original creditor or a collection company?

Please can someone let me know about this situation?
I had a citi bank credit card that I did not pay for almost 2 years. Now when I pulled my credit history. I see 2 things.
First Citi bank is showing account CLOSED not paid and sent to collections.
Second the collection company now has a same account from citi bank and the collection account is showing active. Remarks are “”customer cannot locate””.
Now if I want to fix this should I call the citi bank and pay the amount OR should I call Collection Company and pay it.
Want ideally want is that this negative feedback should go away from both the companies first Citibank and second collection agency
Can someone tell me who should I make a payment …………???

It really depends on who owns the debt. Citibank could have sold the debt to a junk debt buyer which means they have no financial interest in the debt any more. Or they could have it placed with a third party CA. If it is with a third party CA, it really doesnt matter who you send the payment to...the CA will still get paid.

So if I pay to citi bank that means they will call the collection agency to remove it from my personal credit history and vis-versa. I would hate to see making a payment to a collection compnay and citi bank not removing it from my credit history.

OR is it like it does not matter who i pay. This will go away from my credit history because it this point they both are reporting same debt sepratly.

Nope. Paying on a collection account does nothing for your credit. You are paying on a bad debt....you dont get credit for paying on time. All I was saying was, if you make your payment to citibank, they will forward the CA their commision because the account as been assigned to them...called a pay direct.

Ok this sounds great. thanks alot for your help