I have been cleaning up my credit for the past few months and Sears and American Express (which are both chargeoffs) have come back verified. From searching this forum, it looks like these 2 are very difficult and almost always comes back verified. Has anyone had any success with dealing with these 2 companies and negotiating payment for deletion? These 2 companies have turned over their accounts to CA's. I have rec'd correspondence from the CA for Sears settling for 1/2 of the amount owed. I have not responded to their settlement offer as of yet. I am planning on purchasing a home the beginning of next year and really want to resolve these two headaches. Oh yeh, these 2 items has a last activity date of 5/2003. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!
IF sears has SOLD and not just transferred your account to a CA - check your credit reports for account reviews, seems usually TU. They have a reputation for non-permissable inquiries on sold accounts. You can then sue for money and deletion.
So are you saying that if Sears pulled my credit report AFTER the account has been handed over to a CA I can sue them (Sears) for that?
So I take it the credit report will indicate if it's been sold or assigned, right? For example, on my Trans Union report it say "Purchased by Another Lender", that means Sears sold it. However, I also noticed that the last "updated" date on my credit report say 05/2003, does that mean I have a case?
No. Most creditors seem to let sold-off accts age into oblivion. Sears, in order to inflict maximum pain and suffering on your fico, keeps updating your acct. with the cra's. Mean but not illegal. What we're talking about is soft or hard inquiries. They may have been sued enough to learn their lesson and not do it any more at all. Or they may not do it to every acct. And if they do, who knows when. I don't think the inquiries started on mine until acct. was near sol and was about every other month but not exactly.
