I took a look at my credit report and found that I had a $78 collection account with AFNI for unpaid Verizon Charges. I haven't had Verizon since 2003. They told me that if I paid the balance, they will NOT remove it from the credit report but will mark it as paid. My question is this. If they wont remove it from my credit reports, does it help my score at all if they mark it as paid? If it doesn't help the score, why pay it? Thanks!
No, it won't improve your score, but having a "paid" collection looks better to potential lenders than an "unpaid" collection. Some people might prefer to pay for ethical reasons too. However, to a credit-scoring model, both entries are negative marks and will continue to negatively impact your credit score. Sounds like this is a pretty old debt. It may even be dropping off your credit reports very soon on its own.
Well now, admittedly my way of doing it would be much more troublesome but at the same time I'll bet I could force them to take it off with a federal lawsuit. Let's look at a couple of interesting facts. First of all there is a 2 year statute of limitations on cellphone debt under federal law. So I'd want to get sued so I'd have a grounds to take them to federal court. So what can we do to trick them into a lawsuit? How about just telling them you refuse to pay? Tell them if they want the money they are going to have to sue you to get it. That trick will usually get their goat enough to get them into a federal lawsuit one way or another. Now that's what I would do to them. I've got a law firm in some other state I'm going to do that to and the debt isn't even outside of SOL by a long ways. They will have to hire a local lawyer to sue me and then I'll go after them too. Its about an $800 or so debt and I can easily squeeze a good $2500 to $3K out each of them in federal court. Picking up $4K or better on a $800 debt is pretty easy pickings. I'll take that kind of payday any old time. (LOL)
