topic Paid Collection Off Credit Reports in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Anonymous — Tue, 12 May 2020 14:06:47 GMT

Will removing a paid collection off of my credit reports improve my credit score. I just paid it off about 3 weeks ago and it was just put on this year... thanks

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Red1Blue — Tue, 12 May 2020 14:40:06 GMT

Congrats on getting the CO from you the credit report. From what I understand it might or might not help with score increase. Util and other factors also took into consideration for score increase. But any thing done to get rid off the Collections / COs is good. Let others chime in and give you their input.

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

rckstrscott — Tue, 12 May 2020 14:45:12 GMT

I had a very bad report for a long time, took me a while to get it cleaned up. There is some validity to the varying degrees of buckets you get placed in for credit scoring etc, but my recent experience tells me this:

If you have one negative item, and it's recent, and you remove said item you should see a score bump.

For example. Recently I had a negative item on my credit report. It did not belong to me and it was on one report. My EX and EQ scores were high 700s, my TU score was 655.

Removing this raised my TU to 751 literally overnight.

YMMV, but absolutely work to remove this via GW letter. It will be better for you in the long run, and likely the short run.

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Anonymous — Tue, 12 May 2020 15:21:00 GMT

Thank you

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Anonymous — Wed, 13 May 2020 04:59:55 GMT

If the account has already been updated by the collection agency to report its paid status ... send a dispute by mail claiming that you don't recognize this account.

It's unlikely that the collection agency will respond to the credit agency when they reach out to validate the account. This is because it's already been paid so they have no incentive to go through that paperwork. If they fail to respond, the agency will remove the collection from your report.

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Remedios — Wed, 13 May 2020 13:45:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
If the account has already been updated by the collection agency to report its paid status ... send a dispute by mail claiming that you don't recognize this account.

It's unlikely that the collection agency will respond to the credit agency when they reach out to validate the account. This is because it's already been paid so they have no incentive to go through that paperwork. If they fail to respond, the agency will remove the collection from your report.

It will be "recognized" and most likely result in validation, further dropping their scores.

Suggesting to dispute valid items on CR is reckless, because in most cases it doesnt work. If it did, no one would have credit problems.

If you are willing to take that risk for yourself, that's your choice.

Suggesting others do it, without explaining possible fallout is not a way to go about anything.

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Anonymous — Fri, 15 May 2020 20:09:04 GMT

i had a 550 collection for a medical debt removed from my credit report and all 3 FICO scores jumped at least 35 points. this was a couple months ago

Re: Paid Collection Off Credit Reports

Anonymous — Wed, 20 May 2020 23:54:45 GMT

If it is your only collection, removing it should result in a score improvement yes, most likely. But it also depends on what else is in your report do you have other derogatories?

And yes if you dispute something valid and they do verify it, it will update it and any points you have gained by aging will evaporate.