Sorry, I got ahead of myself and didn't read the part about the account being negative. That's a really tough call. If I remember correctly, and these numbers are close but may be off by a couple of percent, your payment history is 35% of your credit score while the length of your credit history is 10-15% of your credit score. So, logic would suggest that any gains in the length of your history by adding the account would not be significant in comparison to the hit you would take for the late payments. Here's where it gets tricky...with the late payments being 2+ years old, if none of them were 90 days late or greater, they would not likely play a big factor in your score. There's an article on credit.com somewhere that you should read which I cannot currently find a link to. Regardless, most credit scoring systems measure the likelihood that you will become 90 days late or greater on some debt in the future. It just so happens that being 90 days late in the past has a strong correlation with being 90 days late again. Thus, many systems treat being late for 90 days as harshly as a collection record or a past bankruptcy. In other words, it only really hurts you to be 30 days or 60 days late if the missed payments were recent (so long as there weren't a lot of them). The farther out those missed payments get, the less they effect your credit score. OTOH, if you have a 90 days late on your record or greater, those are going to hurt you for the entire 7 years those missed payments are on your report. So, what effect would any of this have on future applications for credit? Well, if you're applying for a mortgage they are likely to check all 3 agencies and they'll see the dings regardless. If you're applying for a credit card, many lenders check just one of the agencies. There are boards online that you can search through where people post their applications for credit and which credit reports were pulled. So, if your Equifax record happened to be better than the other two and you needed to apply for a credit card, you would want to maximize your chances by choosing one that checks Equifax. For example, the vast majority of people who apply for a Citi Platinum Select MasterCard have their Equifax record pulled and not the other two. Anyway, I hope this helps you out. The short of it is that reporting the account to Equifax is only likely to effect for better or worse your ability to obtain a credit card and possibly some car loans but not your ability or lack thereof to obtain a mortgage. There's no hard and fast way to determine if it's going to be in your best interest to report this account or not, but I hope the above explanation at least gives you something to think about.
