New to the boards - thanks in advance for your help! I have a charge-off on my CR for an Express store card I opened in 2000, with date of last activity of 4/2002 (I'm not sure what the DOFD is exactly, it should be in the same year but I'm going to call Experian to find out). The balance is $347 and due to moving around throughout college I pretty much ignored all correspondence received re: the account until the past year, after I graduated and started trying to actively repair my credit. I found an old settlement letter from January offering 180 to close the account - turns out it has since been sold to NCO Financial, who has tacked on interest and has a present balance of $504. I am going to send a PFD letter, but I'm also concerned with the late payments that are showing up on my credit report. The account shows 24 payments late 120+ days, starting in May of 2005, and I think this is probably really hurting my score (currently at a 620). I don't really understand the late payments, if I hadn't even acknowledged the debt with anyone in the last five years. If NCO agrees to a PFD, will those be removed as well? Begin rant: I feel really discouraged about this whole process - I have been diligent about paying everything on time, not a single missed payment (auto loan for 2 years so far, student loans for 6 months, low limit credit card for 8 months) in the last couple of years, but my score is still pretty low because of stupid mistakes I made when I was 18! I'm trying to take it one issue at a time but it feels like I'll never have good credit. End rant! Thanks!