Credit Card Collection/Charge off Question?

Question

I recently pulled my credit report and am now wondering what is the best way to get my credit score up. I have a credit card opened in 2000, the status says charge off, I owe $1300, it says date reported 2/2007. I am willing to pay. Can I make an agreement to pay and have the account removed from my report? I also have another bill that was sent to collection. It is for $300, date reported 7/2002, opened in 2001. This only showed up on one of the credit bureaus reports. Should I make an agreement to pay this one off also. Keep in mind these are the only two items on my credit report. Nothing else to prove that I can now pay my debts on time. Having a hard time building credit.

The whole point (newjers) is that I can pay them now. Should I? From reading different comments on here it seems as if people are saying old debts will fall off your report after 4-6 years, so if that is in fact true, I don't want to reactivate the account for no reason.

Answer 1

Negative items that you described stay on you report 7 years not 4-6 years.
You can definitely negotiate your debts with your creditors and, depending on your negotiation skills, make them remove the items for a partial payment. Keep in mind that statue of limitation may have expired on these accounts as well (it depends on your state). If so then creditors can do absolutely nothing in order to collect their money. It is especially true for the collection account that is 6 years old. Most likely this collection agency will not be able to validate this debt and if SOL is expired then they will not even bother.

Make sure you read this article at
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/settle_debts.shtml

Answer 2

Ethically, you should pay the balances whether or not it helps your credit, but at the same time there is nothing wrong with trying to maximize the benefits. Under their agreements with the credit reporting agencies, credit card companies are not supposed to offer to remove a ding in exchange for payment, since that would in essence be false. You had a charge-off, now it would be a paid charge-off, which should be reported. And a charge-off counts the same, paid or not. Sometimes, however, you can get a bill collector to agree not to respond to a challenge. In other words, you pay the amount, then challenge the item on your credit report. If the creditor does not respond withing 30 days, the item comes off. With all this said, your energy is best spent getting new credit. One of your two dings is pretty stale (mortgage companies, for example, give little weight to items more than three years old), so recent credit items will carry more weight. Anyone can get a car loan, and get some new credit cards through department stores -- throw in a secured Visa or two if you have to -- and pay them on time every month. Obviously, don't overextend yourself in pursuit of credit, or you'll defeat the whole purpose.

Answer 3

You should make payment agreements with both of them. Once you get them paid off, or nearly paid off, they will start showing as "paid or paying as agreed." which will be some bonus points on your score. They won't come off until 7 to 10 years after the debts are paid - contrary to popular belief. But when they're paid off or being paid, they count as positives instead of negatives.

As far as the one only showing on one report - that happens. Creditors are not required to report to all three, just at least one of their choosing.

Answer 4

If you can now pay your debts on time, why aren't you paying these old debts? You can't have your past payment history erased from your report. Thats the whole purpose of credit reports - to see what your credit-handling history is.

Answer 5

Zippy is right. You should make an agreement to pay both—eventually they will come off the report. There are other ways to increase your credit score, however. Check out http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHow-Take-Advantage-People-Trying%2Fdp%2F1600200400%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1188487568%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thestateofart-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 for more info on different ways to do that.

Good Luck!