Ok, so I am making some great progress in cleaning things up. I have 10 collection accounts for small, stupid medical collections about to be removed as part of PFDs. The only really tricky one right now is First Premiere. It is a charge-off from 12/2010 that they have not sold and absolutely WILL NOT dod a PFD. It shows a balance of $366 and a past due balance of $366, so I am sure it is really hurting my scores. I am right at 600 FICO with all three CRA, and I am hoping that goes up when the 10 collection accounts are removed. The question I have is, should I just go ahead and pay the $366 to First Premiere so that the past due amount will be reported as $0? Do you guys think that will hurt or help my score? I think the key here is that I don't have a lot of revolving credit - only $1000 across 3 secured cards. I am assuming that the past due of $366 reported from First Premiere is hurting more than if I paid it off. I wanted to get some expert advice before I did it though. Thanks...
First Premier can be very tough to deal with. Keep in mind that paying off the charge-off won't necessarily help your scores. A paid charge-off is basically just as damaging to your FICO scores as an unpaid charge-off. That said, a paid charge off will of course look better to potential lenders in the future. Removing the 10 medical baddies should have an enormously positive impact on your scores too. What's your goal here? Are you trying to improve your credit scores within a certain time period?
Then you may just want to move forward and get this debt paid off. A mortgage underwriter most certainly isn't going to like an unpaid charge-off on your credit reports. If First Premier won't delete, see if you can push for a "Paid in Full" status.
