Should I pay off Completely or Keep payment plan

[Thumper01]

Hello all !

I'm new to the forum and need some help. I currently have 2 BofA card accounts that I closed and set up payment plans on in 2010. The balance on each is now around $800. I am making automatic monthly payments and it appears that these are reporting positively to my report now. I could easily pay these off in full but Im not sure if it will hurt me.  I know BofA is a tough nut to crack for any PFD or Goodwill adjustments so I am not holding my breath on that. I recall reading somewhere rules about closing accounts, which I have already done before I joined here but something about leaving a balance or not so I just want to be sure I maximize my almost 4 years of good payment history with them as far as my scores go. Any advise is appreciated.

[Revelate]

Welcome to the forums!

How are they reporting specifically and was this a report from a third party or from the bureaus via annualcreditreport.com or similar?

In this situation I wouldn't trust any of the third-party interfaces including myFICO unfortunately: something could be getting lost in translation.  A closed account with a balance I don't think typically gains positive history from a payment plan: open date to close date, with a non-zero balance on a closed card is typical I think in this situation?

Without knowing more, if you're paying interest on the balance I'd airstrike it, if not, up to you on a cashflow perspective but I don't think at a swag that you'll be losing anything FICO wise now or in the future  by simply writing the a check.

[user5387]

You might wish to read this:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Closing-Credit-Cards/td-p/347190

In general, a closed account stays on your reports for 10 years, and thus there's no immediate AAoA hit.  So I don't see any issue with paying it off.

In terms of utilization calculations for a closed account, it depends on what is reporting, as the above thread describes.

You might also wish to look through the T & C of your payment plan, to see if there are any gotchas.

[coterotie]

Double check to make sure they are reporting accurately.  First hand experience here.  We had a payment plan with MBNA.  It was reporting as charged off, but each month was reporting paid as agreed and current as that was our agreement with them.  BOA acquired the portfolio and for a year everything was done exactly as MBNA had agreed to.  Then BOA started calling asking us to settle, didn't want to do this as we would have owed taxes on the forgiven amount as well as the reporting was current.  So about 6 months ago, they started reporting negatively for the most recent stuff.  Then they went back and changed the last 4 years of reporting to negative as not being paid as agreed.  So 4 years of satisfactory payments were wiped out and my wife's score took a huge hit that I'm struggling to get back for her.  BOA is an evil devil at this stuff.  (I'm a stockholder of 1000 shares and I think this is a rotten business practice and will be writing a letter to the BOD to that effect).