Experian has an account that I paid in settlement under "accounts in good standing". which is great. however, under status it states: Paid in settlement. $14,076 written off. the truth is that the amount written off was 9,865.00. my question is do I leave it alone because this account is under accounts in good standing, eventhough it irks me. or.... try to contact collection agency to have this change. I am afraid that the good standing is a mistake and that if I question it, it might be put back in "negative items". I hope I explained myself. thanks for any advise and for your time,
If it is a collection account, or a charge-off, it is negative. The "consumer advice" provided by the CRAs to consumers with their reports is often erroneous. The distinction between writing off $14k vs $10k is probably irrelevant for scoring purposes, and even a human underwriter, who would at least see and understand it, might not consider the dollar amount difference as significant as the reasons behind the chargeoff and whether that would affect the risk going forward. How old is this, what other negative items are on your reports, and how is it affecting your scores?
ontrack: thanks for responding. I'm going to try and answer your question. The account I refer to on my previous email is not listed under my negative items. is listed under accounts in good standing. here are details on this account listed on Experian. Date opened 09/1996 Reported since 10/2006 Date of status 05/2006 Last Reported 05/2006 Status details: this account is scheduled to continue on record until March 2011. the item was verified and updated on Oct. 2006. I have no idea how this is affecting my scores. I'm new at this. status: Status: Paid in settlement. 14,076 written off. _________________________________________________ I do have six potentially negative items. They are: Citi 30 days late - one time only Huntington Bank 30 days late - on two ocassions New Century 30 days late on one ocassion. Suntrust 30 days late on one ocassion THD/CBSD (home depo cc) 30 days late on one ocassion I have been trying disputing the above with no luck. will continue to do so. MBNA - I'm making payment on this one through a collection agency. (more on this one later). thank you for your time reading this message and any information or advise you can provide me.
It was settled with the collection agency. it went first deliquent like 3 years ago. I made payments for a while and finally settled in full with the CA.
Don't guess at how it is affecting your scores. Find out. If you are new, or even not, that is how you learn.
that is why I'm here asking what to do about the situation with Citi. so what should I do? what do you suggest I do? Do I dispute the written off amount? how do I know is this is affecting my scores. what do you think about the other negative items on my experian credit report? tx,
If may not be easy to determine how much each negative factor affects your scores, but the first step is to determine what your scores are, and how much this matters. Get each of your reports, and FICO scores (not FAKO) for each of those reports. From any differences in negative reporting across the reports, and the corresponding scores, you will start to have some idea of how much effect a particular negative item has. Alternatively, myfico.com had (presumably still has) a package marketed under Suzie Orman's name, that includes access to a score calculation simulator that can allow you to get some feel for what changes in your reports will produce what changes in scores. If you are already 700 or up, probably none of this matters a whole lot. Start by finding where you are now, and what makes your lowest score lowest, and where your opportunities for most improvement are.
