Ok--we have our house, but the rate REALLY sucks. We've decided to spend the next 2 years cleaning up as much as we can so that we can get a better rate after our prepayment penalty period is up. Question: Do we dispute a "charge off" as paid or "not mine"? Background: We have 2 charge-offs with MBNA (I've written about them here MANY times). Anyway, we decided to take the proceeds from the sale of our old house and pay both accounts off and put only 5% down on our new house. So, these horrible monsters (Wolpoff and Abramson--MBNAs henchmen) are FINALLY off our backs. The problem is that our credit reports are still listing these accounts as "charge offs" with a bizzillion lates. We have disputed them too many times to even remember and we get "already verified" over and over. Now that the accounts are paid off and our address has changed, what is the best way to approach the CRAs? Will we have better luck trying to get them to at least read, "Paid Charge Off"? Will that even help our scores? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. debtchoked
First, if you can, try to get all of the old addresses removed from all CRAs. You don't want to dispute it in a way that you're verified that the debt is legitimate. Think along the lines of this train of thought: "I don't have an account with _____ which is CHARGED OFF." (Since they're collection attorneys, you don't have an account with them which is charged off, you had an account with them which is a collection account, and now it is a PAID collection account at that.) They'll probably code it as a not mine, but it isn't a not mine... ;-)
