To pay, and if so, how much will it help.

[Anonymous]

All,

On my wifes credit reports, we have a closed Capitol One account. It shows "Payment after charge off/collection" and "Settled—less than full balance". I have talked to them about paying the difference between the settlement and the full balance and all they say they will do is change the comments and description. My questions are;

1) Is a change in the description going to change the score? If so, how much considering it will show the late payments.
2) I'm happy, really happy, to pay the full debt. It was owed, but I don't want to give up my chance at getting it paid and improve the score. Should I just keep asking for a full delete?
3) The card had a great history till the problem that all our score issues came up. I don't know that getting this card off completely will help. In other words is it better to keep a TL with negative stuff on the report if it shows that things went off the rail but were corrected?

I want to get this resolved with them, but basically don't know in this case the right direction. Complete removal, change of the comments, or what.

Thanks
TBR

[Anonymous]

Unless they agree to updated the late payment history to reflect no late payment it really wont help.  time will be the biggest factor in this.   At least see if they will remove the chargeoff notation. 

[Anonymous]

The deal seems to be they will change the "Charge-off notation" but not the late payment history.

Funny, I just looked at it in TransUnion and it has no history other than opened date. I guess in that case it would be best completely removed.

This is her oldest account, and I hate to loose any account length benefit she has from it.

TBR

[Anonymous]

No I wouldn't request the account to be removed nly the negative hsitory if you are going to pay.  The thing is it should read 0 balance due so its not hurting her that much.  Leve it alone and keep the age.  After 2 years major derogs take on the minor derog damage ability.