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Credit repair involves both the correction of what has already been reported, and dealing with possible, additional derogs that could be reported.
Charge-offs and collections are routinely added to delinquent accounts.
Federal regs mandate charge-off of most installment debts at 120 days, and revolving debt after 180 days of delinquency.
Reporting of the charge-off can thus occur at any time after the delinquency exceeds those amounts. Paying before a CO is reported may prevent the addtion of a charge-off.
Similarly, delinquent debt that is not yet reporting a collection can be referred or sold to a debt collector at any time once it becomes delinquent, and particularly after the creditor has taken a charge-off. Thus, addressing delinquent debt that has not yet reported a collection can avoid further score damage.
Finally, a review of the current statute of limitations status of each debt is prudent, as the creditor or debt collector might still initiate civil action seeking court ordered payment of the debt. Addition of a judgment is also a major derog.
@Newbie2018 wrote:
How can you tell when an account is charged off? Where on the credit report can I find it?
The report will clearly state Charge-Off. It will be crystal clear.
Federal regs normally require creditors to charge-off installment loans after 120-days delinquent, and revolving accounts after 180-days delinquent. The charge-off regs are to prevent creditors from overstatement of their financial assets by including accounts receivable (assets not yet received) as part of their statement of total assets in their financial statements.
However, creditors are not required to actually report the charge-off to the CRAs. They can simply continue to state the current delinquency status as the normal reporting of 120/150/180+ days late. Thus, the score impact issue is not whether they have taken the CO, but rather whether it has been reported. By paying prior to such reporting, you may avoid the addition of a charge-off or collection.
There are credit monitoring services out there like IdentityIQ that offers free credit reports from all three credit bureaus for a 7-day free trial. Then they charge a fee. If you cancel by the 7th day you won't be charged if you choose not to use the services. You would want an updated credit report from all three. Then you would want to get your creditors to validate the account and the correct amounts you owe. Once you get the reports online and the information from the creditors you can begin the negotiation process. You want to continuously work to fix your credit and utilization ratios. Remember, continue to pay all revolving accounts and installments on-time and work toward getting your balances paid down below 30%. There is more work to do when repairing your credit and improving your credit scores. You are on the right track. Hope I helped.