Rebuilding Your Credit

[danny4l]

Right now I am in a debt retirement program for four credit card accounts.  They will be paid off  by August 2015

My student loan 120 day lates and a 90 day chase late, and a BoA 30 day late will come off of my report by early 2017

Considering these two criteria, I have some money now to pay off all of my collection accounts listed below:

$1000 medical default judgment from 2010

$590 to one collection agency for 6 medical accounts from the same hospital

$105 for another medical collection

$600 for a medical collection (originally $2250 but CA agreed to $600 as paid in full and they agreed to remove from CR)

From my last post, my understanding is that I cannot get new credit while in the credit counseling program and the 120 day student loan late payments will report till 2017. So till at least 2015 I will be in a tight postition and I won't really be out of the woods until 2017.

Is it a wise move to pay off those collections accounts right now (all agreed to remove them from my file and I will file a motion to vacate the medical judgment and then pay the law office)?

What is your assessment of this situation?  What do you recommend I do?  I have no problem paying those debts if I see results right now.

Thanks

[RobertEG]

PFD acceptance is gold.  If I had the funds, I would accept CR deletion in a hearbeat, provided they wont die of their own old-age prior to your need to app for new credit.

And CR deletion wont, in and of itself, result in satisfaction of the debt or the possibility of that old, unpaid debt might still be realized by others.

Paid and deleted is a pretty good deal.

[danny4l]

My CR says that the collection accounts will report till 2015

Since I probably cannot get any credit till 2015, does it makes sense to pay these collection accounts or just have them fall off my report?

I have to take care of the default judgment so I will do that first.

I am still unsure how the statute of limitations works or applies to this situation.  I think paying the collection accounts is the right thing to do but a part of me is saying "Your credit won't see an improvement till 2015 and then these collection accounts will fall off your report so if you pay them now you are really just throwing the money away."

After 2015, can the CA's still pursue the collection accounts?

[RobertEG]

Your FICO score wont benefit, but your credit will, even if not deleted.  You will no longer have unpaid, delinquent debt.

And once the collection is deleted, CR exclusion is not the only way that others can become aware of unpaid debt. 

It is always better to have no old, unpaid debt.  But it's of course up to you.

A debt collector can attempt to collect forever, however it is easy to deal with them if the SOL has expired.  You can simply send them a cease further communication letter under FDCPA 805(c), which makes it illegal for them to have any further communictions with you.

[danny4l]

I will pay these debts but my issue with medical debt is that it is so bogus.  These are just pie-in-the-sky figures that they want to charge the patient.  If they had sat me down and said that this is what it is going to cost to treat you...I would have gladly told them that I would like to remain sick.

I don't have any delinquent CC accounts because I believe that if you borrow someone's money, you have to pay it back.  Medical debt is something else.

In any case, I just want you guys to confirm that paying these collection accounts right now is the smart move.  Just tell me if I am looking into this situation the right way. I can't afford to make any mistakes on my journey to improve my credit score.

[Lasardo]

Read my thread "love this credit game" regarding medical: so easy to get removed !! Don't pay yet!!

[danny4l]

Tomorrow I will be getting the money orders to pay three medical collections.  Please tell me I am doing the right thing.

One collection is being accepted as paid in full for 600

Another is for 589

The last is 108

They all agreed to report to the CB's and remove the entries and I have it in writing.

I'm new to all of this and I want to make sure that this is the right way to tackle these debts and that the medical debts cannot be removed any other way.  On my CR it says that the debts will come off by early 2015.  If paying these collection accounts now is the right way to improve my score than I have no problem doing it. 

[JonRun]

If they're agreeing to delete their entries on your credit reports and you can afford to pay them, that's what I would do. I had an old medical collection and did the same. Good luck.