Credit debt advice needed

[Anonymous]

Hi!

First off new to the site. Ive searched around and my head is spinning at all of the sites out there that try and offer advice but after taking some time on here I feel this is my best fit as everyone is very helpful. First off bear with me as I have a bunch of questions and I have searched but I would feel more comfortable and much appreciated with some direct responses.

I have roughly 5 items on my credit report, it does not sound as bad as it seems but all my scores are below 600 because of failure to pay latefees and added interest..

Sprint-Diviersified account, balance $510.00 (on two reports)

Credit one Bank -Midland Credit Management $1032.48 -listed as chargeoff. My limit was $300.00 and for years the latefees/interest has been running and finally stopped.

Capital One Bank-$584.00 (on two reports)

Kohls $500.00 not in collections, willing to work with me (on two reports)

First off:

I tried first to settled with Diversified and setup 5 payments to settle and was promised a letter breaking down all my payments and also a letter stating that they would show as satisfied on my credit report. I called today to follow up and they said they don't do that, and he said if you are not willing to understand that then we can cancel the arrangement and hung up.

Midland will not budge, it is in there hands and I am stuck with that balance.

Kohls I can work out on my own

Some questions:

As far as my credit report- does it show better and help my score if I just give in and settle for the full amount due instead of taking a percentage off? I am in my early 30's and want to do everything right, obviously learned the hard way. If its going to show as settled and its worse then me paying all these in full (over time of course) then I would rather just pay in full.

Secondly, example being Diversified, which I read can be hard to deal with, how do I get a template to send to them getting them to accept my arrangement first so I am guaranteed a "letter of deletion", is this something I should be asking from them, even though they aren't budging or should I follow some steps and do it myself? Any help would be appreciated.

Thirdly, as far as the companies like Kohls, Cap. One still not in collections, do I still request a letter from them as well. I figure with what I make and what I owe this will probably be a 6 month process.

I actually have inquired about using a debt reduction company but it really seems to be no point. I just wish I had someone who can talk with these people or deal with companies like Midland who will not do anything for me. I am willing to do this all by myself but in review, my main question is to get my score rising, and to get these removed after payment, how do I go about sending or getting a letter of deletion before making a payment and also does settling before paying the full balance due even on some older accounts hurt me more. I just want to do things right.

I also have quite a few inquires which ive made mistakes trying to get credit, is there any way to rid of those. Right now I use Wells Fargo credit monitoring service at 15.00 but I do not see any dispute options, if you recommend anything else please let me know but it does give me all my scores and full report once a month.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

[Anonymous]

My advice is to prioritize by interest rate, for two reasons. Your credit score is less important than your net worth and interest is killing you.

Potentially that means ignoring the charge off now because it just isn't getting any worse and presumably the interest has stopped? You can come back to that later.

Look at the rest and make payments that prevent any further damage, no more charge offs or collections or late payments. Prevent anything from going 120 or 90 or 60 or 30 days late if it isn't already.

Then try and reach settlements with the collections if they are not already charged off.

It would help if you let us know how long these have been delinquent.

[Anonymous]

Bascilly, they are all to the point in which the interest has stopped and late fee's as well as collection has them now.

Both the cards are about less then 3 years old and the Sprint bill about 4 years.

I dont mind priotizing but at this point they are all in the same situation just sitting there and need to be taken care of. I have the money to start setting up arrangements but I want to do it the right way and thats where I brought up asking for letter for deletion or promise to remove letters come in. I have no knowledge of that and want to make sure I do this right, I also want to know if settling vs paying in full will make a difference on my report.

Thanks for the response.

[takeshi74]

Definitely make use of the Rebuilding subform as it is intended for topics like this.

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@Anonymous wrote:

As far as my credit report- does it show better and help my score if I just give in and settle for the full amount due instead of taking a percentage off?

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AFAIK it really doesn't matter.  It's either settled or it's not.  However, you really want deletion.  Settled probably won't help all that much.  Again, carefully research in Rebuilding.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Secondly, example being Diversified, which I read can be hard to deal with, how do I get a template to send to them getting them to accept my arrangement first so I am guaranteed a "letter of deletion"

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There are no guarantees but there are plenty of sample PFD letters out there that you can reference.

[RobertEG]

Creditors and debt collectors are instructed by the CRAs not to delete prior reporting based on payment of the debt.

Thus, they are instructed not to accept PFD offers.  Thus, there is some legitimate reluctance to do PFDs or to put any agreement to do so in writing.

However, they need provide no reason when instructing a CRA to delete, so the CRA is not in a positiion to enforce that policy.

One would presume that any reluctance is diminished by the amount of $ offered for the deletion, so an offer for full payment would likely stand a better chance of acceptance than a lower settlement offer.  If credit report deletion is your primary goal, I would suggest offering a PIF.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the advice guys and I will make sure to check out the other areas.