Hey all, new to the board and desperatley need to improve my credit quickly. My middle FICO score was 523 about a month ago. Since then, I have paid 3 small collection accounts (<$100) and successfully disputed with Equifax the negative info on them since they were utilities for whom I never received a final bill on after a move (waiting on results of the same disputes with TU and Experian). I am paying another utility collection account ($280) today and will dispute the negative info with all 3 bureaus this weekend. I have had a a $1700 account for which I was an authorized user removed from Equifax's report (waiting on other 2 bureau's dispute results). And one collection account for $700 was only showing up on my Experian 3-in-1 as an Equifax item. Equifax has informed me that this item is not on my report (it's around 7 years old), so I think that was just a situation where Experian had not updated the info since it was removed. And I have one $2100 collection account about 1 year old that I am trying to negotiate with ER Solutions to settle at 65% but have no mention of "Settled" in my reports, only "Paid as Agreed". So, my questions - I went through a debt management program from around 11/03 - 3/06. Everything was paid on time once I got in the program, but I had a bunch of accounts that went 30 days late and 60 days late right before I got on the program. The accounts that were paid off in under 2 years under the program are still showing late payments in my 24-month payment history because the account was closed and paid off in less than 2 years. (so the history will run from, as an example, 7/03 - 6/05 and show 30 days late in 10/03 and 60 days late in 11/03, all else OK and the account was completed being paid in 6/05). Is this normal? Is there anyway I can get these late payments off my report since they're actually 3.5 years old? Second, if I can't get ER Solutions to agree to not using the word "Settled" as mentioned above, am I better off paying the whole balance considering I am trying to get a mortgage in the next 6-7 months? Thanks for the advice!
For the lates I would send them a goodwill letter, to see if they will delete them, they don't have to but it doesn't hurt to try. I would only pay the whole amount off at once if they will do a PFD. And get it in writing.
Most accurate negative account information is reported for a period of 7 years (longer for some others). There is no "24 month history" (other than hard inquiries). It depends. If your mortage lender will be relying ONLY on an automated process (e.g., using DU to generate a score, and making NO exceptions from the score), then it's anybody's guess what the numerical difference between "settled" vs. "paid/was delinquent" is (this will depend upon the rest of your credit history). But if they are actually going to perform a manual underwriting on your mortgage application, it might make a difference (subjective opinion of the lender). Honestly, I don't think it will make a difference. The most important part is that the your report indicates that the debt is no longer an obligation (paid or settled).
