2 charged off credit cards -- looking to rebuild

[Anonymous]

Hey guys, 

so I have two charged off credit cards.

One is a BoA for about 4k and the other is from Citi for about 5k. I have the funds at the moment to pay for it in full. 

I haven't made a payment since Sept of last year for BoA and the Citi card has been charged off for over a year I believe. 

I really want to clean up my credit by paying these in full. They aren't showing up as collection accounts on my credit, just charged off. Is there any chance of me being able to remove these from my report if I negogiate with the agencys if I pay in full? 

[OmarGB9]

Unfortunately no, you can't just pay and have them removed. OCs rarely remove their derogatory accounts. You can try GW Removal, but most likely will be met with little to no success.

[Anonymous]

So basically I have no hope.. There will be no way for me to get these off my credit report?  

[Slabenstein]

Just seven years of patience, afaik.  Paying them will still have some benefit, I believe, as they will stop updating and a paid CO can look better in manual underwriting.

[Anonymous]

The sooner you pay them, the better and the less damage they will do to your scores now and in the future.

Try to settle for less just get them paid. And as stated, then try the Goodwill Saturation Technique.

but do it before they become reported collections. 

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous will there be a difference in my score change if I settle or pay in full? 

[marylandgurl9988]

I am rebuilding my credit and I had two credit cards that were in charge off status not with a collections agency and once I paid them off one I settled with and the other paid in full my score shot up 43 points. Since they are revolving once they are paid it will reduce your utilization percentage which helps the score. Once they are paid they will stop reporting past due as well. 

[Anonymous]

Should I communicate with Citi or Bank of America? Will that restart my SOL? 

[coreysw12]

The good news is that after 2 years since the last delinquency was reported on those CO's, they'll have a lot less impact on your scores.

For instance, I've got 5 chargeoffs on my credit report still, but my scores are up around 700ish because those CO's are starting to get old. Last reported delinquencies on them were 3 years ago.

I started with 8 CO's on my reports. 1 got removed on its own (Synchrony just deleted it without me asking, for some reason), and 2 got removed through Good Will letters (both Capital One).

I haven't had much luck getting the remaining 5 deleted. It seems like banks are becoming less and less willing to honor GW requests these days. But as long as you pay them so they can start to age and have less effect on your scores, your scores will recover whether you can get them deleted or not. But the sooner you get started, the better.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous will there be a difference in my score change if I settle or pay in full? 

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@Anonymous I do not think so but I cannot state that as a fact.

I can tell you this though: if they are regularly updating them, when you pay them you typically see a boost due to reduced utilization. However, if they have not updated in a long time, then a catch up penalty, or the determination that it's now recent because it was just paid (or both), usually causes a penalty that outweighs the utilization boost.

that's why it's good to pay them as soon as possible, just be aware if it's not regularly updating, it could result in a net score loss.