Hi I am fairly new to this process. I have been reading credit boards for the past year, and I am actually able to now start attacking my credit issues and woes. I have a question about how I should begin this process. I have pulled my credit reports. I actually through the online service of Equifax had a couple items deleted for being the same accounts and being reported twice due to a bank merger (one under the old name and one under the new name). I have one account which was verified as a paid in full charge off which I am still validating because I believe I settled this account before it was ever in a charge off status. Currently on my account I am embarassed to say that I have 5 credit cards which were charged off back in 99. These cards all came from that dreaded freshman year in college. The balances that started out were all small like 500.00 with one having a credit limit of 1000.00. Because of interest and late fees obviously some of the balances are higher. I also have two utilities from BellSouth and Sprint which I need to take care of including a 124.00 bill from Texaco. The brighter sides are a loan with my credit union showing as pays as agrees and paid in full with no late payments. A paid off (without any late payments) car loan, a new car loan which is a pays as agrees, a new federal student loans which is a pays as agrees, a pc loan obtained through my college which is pays as agrees, and a couple student loans which shows as paid in full without any negative information. My questions revolve around when trying to settle and pay these debts with the charge offs and in trying to develop a settlement with the companies in order to remove negative information is it advised to try and make a settlement with the current balance owed or could I make a settlement based on what my credit limits were on the credit cards. I am willing to pay cash now for those, but would prefer to not make a settlement based on extra charges from late fees, over limit fees, interest fees, etc etc. Does anyone have any advice? I have searched the archive, and I am thinking I have just not been sucessful with my searching skills because I have not found the answer as of yet. Chris
People settle accounts for all different amounts, the main thing is to make sure that whatever you pay they will delete the negative tradeline. And get it in writing.
