On my report it says "payments being made by credit counseling service" in the comments

[drkaje]

@ Danny4l,

I feel it depends on the company. Some insist clients go into default first so negotiating lower rates is possible. Those strategic late payments can hang around for up to 7 years.

IMO, after the debt is fully paid the coments will likely change to "pays as agreed".

[marty56]

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@danny4l wrote:

Even though the comment appears on my report now, is it true that the comments are removed once I "graduate" from the program?

So if the debts are paid off by 2015, then the comments fall off?

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No and the accounts would be closed by them if they haven't been closed already.  Ironically my BofA account from 1996 still shows open and since it is clean now, helping my util and AAoA too!.

IMHO I would not dispute them after you are done since even if they have lates, they will help your AAoA, closed or not.

[henchita]

Dont know how it is now, but when I did joined a credit counseling service I was not able to get any new credit with anyone until the service fell off of my report.

[danny4l]

so does the service fall off your report once the debt has been paid off in full?

This program will allow me to pay off my unsecured debt by August of 2015.

So does that mean that by September of 2015, I will be in good shape or something else?

[danny4l]

To add to this, since some of you are saying that by having this comment on my report I am effectively ineligible for credit till the program is over, do you think I should pay off some medical collections (which will be deleted from my report)?

I think these collections will actually fall off my report around the time the credit counseling program is over or maybe a year after.  Do you think it would be wise to pay off these collections which will amount to about $1500 now even though my score will improve but I may not be eligble for credit?

[henchita]

For me they started saying paid as agreed as the were individually paid off. Then the DMP stopped reporting when all the credit cards were paid off,then my credit score shot up because I "payed as agreed."  But I was not able to get any other credit while on it, I didnt try a prepaid card, but I couldnt get any cc's or refinance my mortgage which was hard.  On top of it all they cancelled all my current cards, one with 11 years of reporting so that really sucked