I’m trying to figure out what to do about a chargeoff on an old Amex account. Here’s the short scoop:
I hadn’t used the card in over 2 years, and they started sending me mail, which I assumed were those “use these checks to get cash!” type mailings, since I hadn’t been using the card & knew there was no balance, so I just tossed them into my documents file unopened. Turns out they started charging an annual fee for said card, and started assessing a late fee for non-payment for every month missed.
I didn’t tune into the fact until about 6 months in, when I finally opened what had turned out to be bills. I called right away and they offered to discharge the late fees if I paid the annual fee, and instead I asked to have the card cancelled since I never used it and didn’t even know where the card was. They would not allow me to cancel the card because I didn’t have the 4-digit ‘security code’ for the card—which I explained to them was because I didn’t know where the card was. Now granted, I was rude to the customer service rep because I was angry over the whole thing, and I ended up saying I’d call back to cancel later and hung up.
At this point, they stopped sending me any mailings and I totally forgot about the entire issue until….I ran a credit report this year and found that my credit dropped from 810 avg to a 706 avg – over 100 points! The $113 chargeoff from Amex is the ONLY negative on my entire credit history of 15 years. I’m just agog that a single negative report can drop one’s score so much.
Of course I want to return to my previous high score, especially because I want to refinance my mortgage. What is my best and/or quickest course of action? Call them and offer to pay up? Send a goodwill letter? I’ve tried searching through the forums, but there are a lot of amex posts and I couldn’t find any that were relevant to my particular situation. Thanks in advance for your advice.
