Revisiting a Capital One Charge-Off

[vawt]

I'm working with a friend to fix his credit so he can buy a house in 6 months or so.  GW letters for various lattes, PFD on an old collections, etc.  I noticed he had a Capital One C/O from a few years ago and told him that if we could get the comments changed from "settlement accepted" type language that it would really help get his score up.  He couldn't remember what he had settled for, so I told him to call them and check into it.  They said for $126 they would update the comments to something like "account paid".  I'm assuming that was the amount they forgave initially.

My question is, 2 of the credit agencies say more than charge-off in the comments, they note some of the late payments and their status codes (r4, r5)  Will that get removed too?  Just think its strange that the comments for each of the three bureaus are pretty different.

I told him to call back and ask for a letter or email from them stating the offer and to try and get more information on what the comments would actually say.  Is there anything else we need to do on this?

P.S.  I got a score watch alert a few days ago that my EQ score is now 802!  I was excited, but didn't want to put it in its own post.

Message Edited by vawt on 08-12-2009 10:00 AM

Message Edited by vawt on 08-12-2009 10:17 AM

[guiness56]

Paying a collection, CO or settlement will have no impact on your score.  It will not remove any negative annotations.

If it is the OC reporting, if you pay it in full, the balance will no longer count toward utilization, which may help your score.

He could offer a PFD for the remaining balance and see what they say.

[vawt]

Did you read my entire post?  They are offering to change the comments on the charge-off.  By doing that it is no longer a negative account and WOULD affect his fico score.  And it shows no balance currently, so utilization is not affected in either case. 

My question was how to handle the late payments on the account.  This may be better off being a PFD scenario, which I agree with.

[medicgrrl]

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@vawt wrote:

Did you read my entire post?  They are offering to change the comments on the charge-off.  By doing that it is no longer a negative account and WOULD affect his fico score.  And it shows no balance currently, so utilization is not affected in either case. 

My question was how to handle the late payments on the account.  This may be better off being a PFD scenario, which I agree with.

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Are you sure they are going to remove all the negative information?  The way I read your post it sounds more like they are going to change the comments from "settled" to "paid"  This does not mean they are going to change it to "paid as agreed"  It sounds like they are just going to change it from being settled for less than amount owed to paid in full...but not changing the status.

Cap1 is terrible about GW's on CO's.  If they actually change this account from a negative to a positive please post back!!

[Anonymous]

I had them remove a charged off CC this past january.  The card was charged off in Feb 07, and I paid it in jan 08.  I then sent a GW in Feb to the basic Salt Lake City PO Box, and disputed it through the bureaus.  It was removed in about a week without a word.

I don't know how or why they did this so easily.  I also have an open CC, but it has 2 90s, 4 60s and  2 30s on it.  I was trying repeatedly to get those off, but I stopped because I didn't want them to figure out I had a CO and put it back on my files.

[JustWill]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I had them remove a charged off CC this past january.  The card was charged off in Feb 07, and I paid it in jan 08.  I then sent a GW in Feb to the basic Salt Lake City PO Box, and disputed it through the bureaus.  It was removed in about a week without a word.

I don't know how or why they did this so easily.  I also have an open CC, but it has 2 90s, 4 60s and  2 30s on it.  I was trying repeatedly to get those off, but I stopped because I didn't want them to figure out I had a CO and put it back on my files.

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I'm in a similar situation, the worst negative on my report is an old charged off Capital One account, although I've had 2 accounts with them in good standing for 2 years now. I'm afraid to dispute the older account and jeopardize my current accounts by disputing. Waiting for the settled CO to fall off is killing my utilization... Anyone else have success in a similar situation?

[guiness56]

Yes, I read the entire post and my comment remains the same.  It will still be a negative account due to the lates.

[DI]

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@vawt wrote:

I'm working with a friend to fix his credit so he can buy a house in 6 months or so.  GW letters for various lattes, PFD on an old collections, etc.  I noticed he had a Capital One C/O from a few years ago and told him that if we could get the comments changed from "settlement accepted" type language that it would really help get his score up.  He couldn't remember what he had settled for, so I told him to call them and check into it.  They said for $126 they would update the comments to something like "account paid".  I'm assuming that was the amount they forgave initially.

My question is, 2 of the credit agencies say more than charge-off in the comments, they note some of the late payments and their status codes (r4, r5)  Will that get removed too?  Just think its strange that the comments for each of the three bureaus are pretty different.

I told him to call back and ask for a letter or email from them stating the offer and to try and get more information on what the comments would actually say.  Is there anything else we need to do on this?

P.S.  I got a score watch alert a few days ago that my EQ score is now 802!  I was excited, but didn't want to put it in its own post.

Message Edited by vawt on 08-12-2009 10:00 AM

Message Edited by vawt on 08-12-2009 10:17 AM

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A negative account regardless what comments are saying is still a negative account if lates are being reported on it. 

[DI]

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@guiness56 wrote:
Yes, I read the entire post and my comment remains the same.  It will still be a negative account due to the lates.

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I agree guiness56