I have 3 charged off accounts. All still being reported by OC - no CA is reporting on them right now. They did before and I dv'd and disputed and they were all removed. I've gotten my "myfico" score up from 495 in October to 605 as of this week. The three charge offs are within SOL. I have the money to pay them but I want to be careful in the way I make my intial contact with the companies. I know I wont be able to get them to PFD, but I'm hoping for maybe some kind of agreement more favorable to my credit than paid charge off. I'm sure I will hurt it by paying them and having a recently paid charge off on there. I need to get this done quickly, but I don't want to seem desparate to them. I know they can still sue. Should I call or write as the initial contact? I really wish I could get them to agree to update my credit report to not such a bad tradeline of charge off, but from what I've read and can tell there is no chance of that happening. I have a long credit history and everything else in my credit history is good, I just went through a rough year with a divorce and no employment. Thanks
Well, I called Macy's and the lady told me I had to contact the CA. She said that Macy's still owns the account but it's been sent out to the CA and if they dont collect it goes back to macy's. she said there was no one i could talk to to get it recalled from the ca! Called Old Navy and their automated system transferred me to Security Credit Services. They guy told me they owned it now. He said that my status with them re my CR is deleted pending investigation. He said if I pay in full it will not be re-entered onto any of my CR's. He emailed me a letter that says "it is the policy of Security Credit Services to expunge all tradelines if payment is made in full". And he read me their pIF letter that says they will delete any tradelines on CR. In my case since it was deleted before because I disputed it it would not be re-entered.
Now that you've made initial contact via phone, you might want to think about keeping everything in writing from this point forward. You're going to want to have a clean record of all your communication. Did you find out who the CA is for your Macy's account? Also, that's good news on the Old Navy account. Make sure you have everything in writing, and signed, before you make payment in full. CAs have been know to say one thing and do another from time to time .
Thank you for your reply. My concern is when I pay to the ca will old navy then have to report it as a paid charge off? Then if they do that will that make my score go down?
Isn't Old Navy already reporting it as a charge-off? Paid or unpaid, the charge-off will have basically the same effect on your credit score. One negative entry is certainly better than two, so you want to do everything in your power to avoid the CA placing a negative mark on your reports too. You may even be able to contact the OC after it's been paid and convince them to change how they're reporting to the CRAs. I've seen others have success with this lately in other forums I frequent.
So I hope you still have that email. If you do then look at the message source so the header is shown so a trace route can be performed if necessary to prove where it came from then print out the source code and the actual message view as well. Save them and save them both to your hard drive as well. Then file a federal lawsuit against them for operating an illegal credit repair organization under CROA and see who pays who as well as whether they want to keep on making adverse reports about you to the credit bureaus. Offering to delete or report to credit reports if you pay violates CROA. It is also a violation of CROA to accept money for credit repair or adjustment prior to having performed the agreed upon work or service. Want to do your own credit repair the right way and get paid for doing it? You just learned one of the possible steps to getting the job done. There are others, of course but that is a great one when a debt collector or a creditor gets stupid enough to put something like that in writing. If you do your homework you won't even have to hire a lawyer to do it for you.
GE Money Bank should already be reporting it as a paid charge off insofar as it was sold and thereby, paid by the debt purchaser.
It is showing paid on my transunion report. I just pulled that up today. So does that mean they will not update it? The reason I am asking all of this is Macy's and Old Navy last reported in June 2009 from what I can tell. The TL says date updated and that's the date next to it. My concern is that when I pay it they will update it as paid and it will be more recent and make my score go back down. Does that make sense??? To billbauer - The email had an attachment - a letter on their letterhead, etc with that quote about expunging when it's paid in full
No, the OC's won't update if an account has been sold. If it is still in their hands, then yes, they'll up the date.
I think I screwed up! I didn't realize this when I talked to the CA the other day. This is a CA that I requested validation from on the account. I requested it because it was on my credit report and was deleted when I disputed with CRA. They have not validated yet. Do they have recourse against me since I called and talked to him about agreeing to not report in exchange for full payment???? Also, the CA is listed as the owner of the account now.
No, you didn't screw up and they have no recourse against you because you called and talked to them about agreeing not to report in exchange for full payment. Seems to me that au contrare you have recourse against them under CROA and should sue them for that violation. Obviously you asked about that and of course your reason for doing so was to obtain a better credit rating in return for your payment in full. Since they can't demand payment to do (or not do ) anything to improve your credit until six months after the work has been completed under CROA you might have recourse against them in federal court for violation of CROA. That's what I think anyway.
Depending on your state law, you "may" have reset the statute of limitations in terms of them suing you if you made a promise to pay. However, it seems you were trying to reach a contract or something that could be construed as such and thereby, it would be a real stretch to advance the argument that you reset the SOL. Again, this is only applicable if your state law allows it. In short, no, you did nothing wrong.
