Collections

I am trying to help my fiancee improve his credit score, so we can buy a house in the next year. He has two collections on his credit score. One has a date of last activity on 12/03 and the other is 01/06 and they both have been paid in full. I know that a collection can stay on your report for seven years, but is there any way we can remove it early? I have been reading conflicting views about whether or not they can be. Can someone please help me sort this out?

The only way to remove these types of accounts is to get the collection company to agree to a pay for delete agreement before you pay them, since you did not do this they have no incentive to remove the accounts.

They should show as paid with a $0 balance, if not you can always dispute them and since they are paid the collection companies may not bother to respond and if they don’t then they will be removed.

Good luck.

I have about 5 thousand dollars in unpaid medical bills i’ve dodged paying for about a year. I’ve never applied for a credit card or had any type of credit. When I went to check my credit history about my unpaid bills that are now in collections ive been shown my credit score is 567. So what im asking is do unpaid medical bills affect your credit score that much and its really that bad? or is that the score thats expected for someone whos never had or used a credit card?

You can use this credit monitoring service to pre-estimate future scores for different scenarios of such payments - credit-report-free.totalh.com

I want to open a new checking account, but my credit is very bad. I need to open a new checking account in order to deposit checks that I have. I can not use my main checking account because all of my money was taken out do to an overdraft fees from 2005. I still owe over $400, so this checking account is useless to me and I need a new one.

Сredit repair workеd fine to fix my credit. They disputed and removed lots of bad items from my credit report. I used this service - credit-report-score.10001mb.com

I sacrifised alot and have finally payed off all of my debt and collection accounts and I got the letter showing a 0 balance what do I do with the letter? How do I get these accounts off my credit and raise my FICO score?

You must send the letter reflecting the ‘zero’ balance to all three credit bureaus and request that they update your credit report to reflect this fact.

Make sure you send copies and keep these letters in a file. Some will say to keep the documents for 3 or 5 years. My advice is to make them a permanent part of your file. Meaning keep them forever. If one of your creditors ’sells’ your information to an outside agency, you will be prepared to send a copy to prove in writing that your account has been paid.

So I had a bill of $5800 go to collections, a credit card of mine through Citibank. The collections agency has contacted me, and send me two letters in the mail. It has been almost two months and I just got a statement letter in the mail from citibank for the $5800 + $29.00 over credit limit fee.

How can they charge a fee on a debt they sold to another company? Isn’t this illegal? Thanks for any help!
Thanks everyone for your help!

Citibank has not sold the debt. They have outsourced the collections to the debt collector.

If the debt collector gets payment then they will receive a percentage of the amount collected.

Interest and over the limit fees will still be applied every month until debt is paid.

i have a credit card of a credit limit of only $500.what happens once its sent to collections? is there anyway i can fix this problem without having to give them a bunch of money up front?
500 may not seem like alot,but for me it is.i dont use the card either,and i never will again.i actually have 2 cards that are both over the limit,the reason why they went over was because of there damn fees.

It shows as negative on your credit report which lowers your credit score and Will remain their for seven to ten years.make a plan to make set payments on a payment plan to try and keep it from going to collection. and for goodness sake STOP using the card. your going to ruin your credit future. like buying a car or a home.

I’ve discovered about $500 in collections accounts on my credit report (all from collection agencies). I’m looking into a car lease in the next 2 months. Don’t mean to sound dumb but…
1. Will paying off accounts to collection agencies from 2002-2004 damage my FICO score more than help it?

2. When will I start to see results on my credit reports and how long will it take for my FICO score to increase?

it doesnt stay on from the last activity of payment..but from the original creditor reporting it….read the LAW below!!

Section 605(a)(4), which has been in effect since the FCRA became effective in April 1971, has always prohibited CRAs from reporting chargeoffs that are more than seven years old.(1) Section 623(a)(5), which became law in September 1997, requires a creditor that reports a chargeoff to a CRA to notify the agency (within 90 days of reporting the account) of "the month and year of the commencement of the delinquency that immediately preceded" the chargeoff.

Section 605(c)(1) provides that the seven year period begins 180 days from that date. Both provisions were part of the major revision to the FCRA that were enacted in 1996.(2) .

although it will fall off sooner than you think….if you pay it off now..it will bring the collection CURRENT or LAST ACTIVITY will be current on a COLLECTION ACCOUNT. Your score WILL DROP. I would recommend that you ‘PAY FOR DELETION’…many collections will DELETE if you ask for it…and you MUST get it in WRITING.

nobody knows if your FICO will increase if we dont know if you have new credit that is re-establishing your credit history. if you have already been doing this with 3-4 tradelines…then probably 1yr-2yrs.

I was wondering if you have multiple late payments and collections, if a person hires a good attorney or someone who specializes in cleaning credit reports, can they clean up a terrible looking report to take the collections off and the multiple late payments?

Per the Fair Credit Reporting Act (Federal law) no one can remove derogatory credit unless the information is incorrect.

The only thing you can do is if any of the information is incorrect be it a date, amount of money owed etc. you can dispute those items and hope for the best, sometimes it works and other times they simply correct the information.

If it’s something like a medical collection, cell phone bill, utilities or some other non credit card related account you can also ask for a pay for delete agreement from the collection company this simply says that in return for your payment they agree to remove the account from your report, if they agree get this in writing before you give them a dime.

I see some scam answers have showed up so I will quote from the 2009 edition of the Consumer Action Handbook.
"If the information is accurate, only time, hard work, and a personal debt repayment plan will improve your credit report. Credit repair companies advertis they can erase bad credit for a hefty fee. Don’t believe it".

Good luck.

i have collections on my credit report. i called the collection companys around my area and they did have some for me but not all that was on my report. how do i find these companys to pay them? or what should i do next?

Ask lenders for agreement to delete this items from your credit report when paying them. I recommend to get such agreement thru credit repair agency, for example this one - creditreport.fateback.com

Paid outstanding balances from small companies to big time bank loans. Eliminated collections ranging from 100 to 1000 dollars. Need to know if this will help my credit as i intend to buy a house after my deployment ends next March 08.

If this should ever happen again you should request a pay-for-deletion of the collection amounts and pay-offs.

Doing so and getting the collection manager to agree will improve your credit score much more rapidly than collection items showing as PAID on your credit report.

See hyperlink for form letter.