Charge Off Capital One Account

[Anonymous]

Hello! I am new to this site and though I started off my poor credit history so young (twenty years old at this time), I am hoping to clean it up as fast as I can. Over two years ago, I opened two credit cards which I became unable to make payments on. After overcoming a layoff, I have finally paid off the debt I occurred on both credit cards within this last year. 

With a stable job, I finally got the guts to check my credit score for the first time today, I already knew it would be low at 545 because of these two dings on my report. I am new to this and would love some advice on how to clean it up. My credit is at 100%, debt at 0% because I have no loans, mortgages, or other payments on my credit at this time. Like I said, I'm young and fairly new to this.

Moving on to my CC: My AMEX credit card is listed as "CLOSED" however, my Capital One says "Charge Off" and I am confused where to go from here. Any tips are greatly appreciated and I look forward to any responses you guys may have.

Thank you!!

[Anonymous]

Hello,

 If both your CC (AMEX & CAP ONE) are paid in full, go ahead and start sending them GW letters to have the negative info removed from those two tradelines......Most likely since CAP ONE is a Charge OFF then your best bet is to GW  them to remove the entire tradeline altogether. If AMEX is only showing Closed PAID IN FULL but you have some lates on there (ie, 30,60,90days late, etc.....) then you can GW them to only remove those LATES.....

In the meantime, get two secured credit card accounts and make sure to use them and pay them in full every month....In about 4-6 months you should be able to  see your scores improve quite a bit.

If you need help with GW (Good Will) Letter...You can search it on here and there's some examples. Most likely you'll have to send a few because its highly unlikely you'll get a response from the first one...But miracles have happened before so who knows...Just don't stop at one or even five....Send them to different ppl in the company everytime (CEOs, Managers, emails, Po Boxes, etc..).

Best of luck to you.

[RobertEG]

I assume, from your post, that the debt on your two prior CCs, the AMEX and the Cap1, is now paid.

So you have no remaining debt?  A good first start in preventing any furhter collections, or legal actions!

You have two things to deal with now.  First, how to clean up the carnage that remains in your current credit report, and then how to improve your future credit score.

Your CR will probably show the following derogs:

For AMEX:

Each month you were previously delinquent in payments.  YOu will see such things as a 30/60/90 day lates still in your CR.

Each of these prior monthly derogs hurts your credit score until they each, individually, reach 7 years from their month and year of delinquency. Then they go away due to old age.  To get earlier deletion, you need to send them a good-will letter, giving them a reason to delete them earlier.

For Cap!:

Really, pretty much the same as the AMEX card, but with one additional, and major derog.  The charge-off.  That is a major derog that will separately remain, unless you can get earlier deletion, for 7 1/2 years from the date you first went delinquent on the Cap1 account (called your DOFD).  Trying to get GW deletion of the charge off would benefit you the most.

As for rebuilding credit history, I dont see the normal first steps of securing new credit now as a vialble option.  You have no active revolving credit, no installment loans, and a low FICO score.  With that mix, applications for new credit will be hard to gain approval.

Concentrate on cleaning up your current derogs.

The one ray of hope I can offer is possibly getting yourself added as an authorized user (AU) to the revolving CC account of another.  That will at least give you one revolving CC upon which to base your rebuilding.  Maybe a mom, dad, brother,or sister who may consent to your addition to their good account as an authorized user?

If you get added as an AU, it will show in your credit report just as if you had always held that account, and you will get all of its benefits.