topic Re: Should I contact creditor in Rebuilding Your Credit

Should I contact creditor

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 13:04:33 GMT

Hello,

I just recently started to try and repair/build my credit scores. Unfortunately I was unaware of fico until last week and thought I was doing good at it based on my credit karma scores. Needless to say my fico is around 75 pts less then CK. Anyhow, I have one credit card account (Kohls) which is from 2016. This account has nothing but delinquent payments (I opened the $300 card, maxed it out and didn't make a single payment) It now shows $566 balance ($300 + late fees). My question to this forum is should I contact kohls at this point and ask them if I pay the $566 if they will remove it from my credit reports? Is there any downside to contacting them? The account status is closed amd payment status says charge off. Balance was last updated October 30 of 2020. It has not been sold to a credit collection agency as of yet. Any advice on how to handle this? I really want this negative mark off my report and have the means to pay what I owe on the card. Please help, I'm trying to do what I should have done years ago, which is protect my credit so I can eventually buy a home down the road. Thank you.

Re: Should I contact creditor

Jnbmom — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 13:10:03 GMT

If Kohl's owns the account it's issued by cap one . Original creditors usually don't delete for payment . You can pay it and try a GW campaign but it's doubtful . Do you have any other negatives reporting . A paid charge off looks better than unpaid but paying it will not likely increase your score . But obviously you owe the debt .

Re: Should I contact creditor

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 14:15:32 GMT

Thank you for your quick response. I will just pay it anyways, but was hoping to somehow get it removed. The only other thing I have is a $941 derogatory collections mark for a sprint account from August 2018. The debt is now owned by Enhanced Recovery Co. I'd love to settle for less with them, for a pfd but from what I've read ERC very RARELY accepts a pfd. I disputed this accounts accuracy, because I haven't had sprint since 2016/17 but my dispute came back rejected. If you have any advice on my best way to handle this one, I'd appreciate it.

Re: Should I contact creditor

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 15:09:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you for your quick response. I will just pay it anyways, but was hoping to somehow get it removed. The only other thing I have is a $941 derogatory collections mark for a sprint account from August 2018. The debt is now owned by Enhanced Recovery Co. I'd love to settle for less with them, for a pfd but from what I've read ERC very RARELY accepts a pfd. I disputed this accounts accuracy, because I haven't had sprint since 2016/17 but my dispute came back rejected. If you have any advice on my best way to handle this one, I'd appreciate it.

Paying a CO can increase your scores, while paying a CA will not (or very little). There are cases where paying a CO does little, but it will just depend, but considering the last update was only a few months ago, it could be positive. Many others have had positive results paging COs.

I would deal with it soon. Since they stopped updating, they may be getting ready to sell to a CA. Maybe not, but best to not have to worry if they do and then worry if the CA will PFD.

Your best bet with ERC is to contact sprint and ask them to recall the debt collection authority from ERC in exchange for payment directly to them (Sprint). This will require paying in full and will force ERC to delete the CA since the no longer have the authority to collect on the debt.

Be certain thay Sprint does not simply agree to update the ERC account as "paid".

Re: Should I contact creditor

House2021 — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:08:32 GMT

I had two with capital one, including a kohls capital one card.. interestingly after 5 years they removed one and sent me a tax document for debt forgiveness even though I never ever contacted them about the debt ever. So they might be willing to work with you, I'm personally going to send them a goodwill deletion letter for my kohls capital one, doesn't hurt to ask

Re: Should I contact creditor

gdale6 — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 20:30:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I disputed this accounts accuracy, because I haven't had sprint since 2016/17 but my dispute came back rejected. If you have any advice on my best way to handle this one, I'd appreciate it.

If this amount is not yours then you can use the laws afforded you in the FCRA to have ID theft accounts suppressed.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Victim-of-Identity-Theft-What-To-Do-to-Protect-Yourself/td-p/2059499