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Hello everyone,
I had an unforunate circumstance that left me having to essentially max out all my credit cards. The utilization is at about 76%. However, I have the money to pay all of the credit cards off. Can literally do it all today. My questions regarding this is, should I just pay them all off and down to $0 balance, or pay a substantial amount and leave a small balance on all the cards and then pay off over time? Which is better? According to some of the simulators, paying off to a $0 balance will give me an approx. 71-75 point score increase. Which would return me to my original score when I initially started my rebuild (670+ across all 3 beaureu's). Right now, I have gone based off the Vantage 3.0 scoring model and also the FICO scores provided from CCT. Obviously they differ very much. On CCT i'm above 600 on all 3 Agencies. Where as V3.0 has my at 588 for TU and 605 for EQ.
Additionally, I attempted to reach a settlement for a collection that was opened in 2015, but I was only notified via mail about it a month ago. I called the settlement company which supplied me with 3 options. A 40% payoff cost / 20% payoff cost if done in 3 months / $50/mo until debt is paid off. Debt is for $466. I also have this ready to pay off at any moment. I contacted the agency to offer full payment with certified funds and requested that they supply a written agreement on their company letterhead stating they would delete the collection from the beaureu's. They agreed and we set a date for the payment to process and also allow enough time for the notice to reach me. The notice arrived via mail 2 days prior to the agreed payment date. The letter stated nothing other then that I agreed to pay in full to "Resolve my account". No mention of a request to delete or that they would delete this collection from my reports. What should I do at this point? They can't sue me because the debt is too old and can't put a lien on any of my accounts (Their words, not mine). I'd really prefer to achieve a PFD with them instead of just paying it and having to wait another 5 years before it comes off my reports (Shown on the report as of 2015). They are also reporting it as a "Late/Missed" payment as seen in the picture. What should be my next step. I feel if I pay off all my CC debt and somehow manage to get this Collection off my report and stop the late payment reporting, I'll finally break the 700 threshold i've been so eager to achieve. ANY help/guidance on this is greatly appreciated.
Kind Regards,
- NJ_Patriot
@rmduhon wrote:
Pay off all the cards except for 1 and let that card report a balance of less than 9% of that card's limit. As for the collection, ignore the 'opened' date. That is when the CA acquired collection authority by either buying the account or NY being assigned to collect for it. It has no bearing on when the account will be removed. That is based on the Date of First Delinquency (DoFD) which is shown on your actual reports from the bureaus. Monitoring sites don't show this.
Well, I have looked at my reports and don't see anything that references a DoFD. Only says Date Opened / Date Paid / Date Closed / Date Updated / Pay Status / Last Payment Made
So I'm not sure what date to go off of. It's a really old Capital One account that was charged off. Like 9 years ago. I just don't know when the CA took it on. As I only received physical mail about it about a month ago... and just want to resolve it. Really want to break into the 700 threshold before end of the year.
If the DOFD for the Capital One account is more than 7 years I wouldn't worry about this account. When is this scheduled to be deleted off your credit reports? They are probably over the SOL to collect. File a complaint with the BBB and CFPB and see if it's deleted.
@Anonymous wrote:If the DOFD for the Capital One account is more than 7 years I wouldn't worry about this account. When is this scheduled to be deleted off your credit reports? They are probably over the SOL to collect. File a complaint with the BBB and CFPB and see if it's deleted.
My TU estimates it will be removed approximately 4/2021. This is not on my EQ Report and my EX Report doesn't show an estimate. My apologies but who is "CFPB"?
+1 I just paid off/settled 3 midland accounts and they deleted them from my reports within a week.