Do you have any tips or tricks for me? Multiple charge-offs/guilty conscience...

[Anonymous]

Hi, my name is red007, and I have a credit addiction.

I'm in no particular rush to pay these things off, as I don't plan on making any large purchases within the next couple of yrs. However, I have a guilty conscience for not paying off all of my debts... and I'm worried about potentially getting sued. I lost my job sometime around the spring/summer of 2017 and quickly fell behind on my payments... I'm in a much better place now  I don't have my credit report in front of me, so all dates and amounts listed below are estimates. I'm wondering: are any of these companies known to PFD? If not... how would you suggest I go about handling these accounts? Settle, then bombard them with GW letters? PIF and do the GW letter thing? These are all listed as charge-offs (NOT collections) and update monthly... they're ugly and I want them to go away (for my own peace of mind):

Kohl's - $600 balance/$300 limit (charged off 4/17)

Bank of America #1 - $550 balance/$500 limit (charged off 4/17)

Bank of America #2 - $550 balance/$500 limit (charged off 4/17)

Target (TD Bank) - $950 balance/$700 limit... sold to a law firm? (charged off 7/17)

Citi - $250 balance/$200 limit (charged off 7/17)

Discover - $200 balance/$200 limit (charged off 7/17)

Chase - repossession - owe deficiency of $9,000 (charged off 1/18)

Thoughts? Comments?

Thank you!

[FireMedic1]

Its best to pay what you owe. Then after the CO's are paid off. Then go after the GW letter technique. All those CO's are killing you until PIF.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/The-Saturation-Technique-Best-GW-adjustment-...

None of the companies are known for PFD

[RobertEG]

First, the relevant date for each charge-off is not when they took or reported their charge-off, but rather the date of your first delinquency in the chain of delinquency that led directly to the charge-off.

Credit report exclusion, and in most states, running of the SOL, begins with the DOFD.

Creditors do not report, and CRAs do not record, the date that a charge-off was taken.

When a creditor reports a charge-off to a CRA, they are only reporting that they have, at some prior date, taken that accounting measure.

Date reporting is not the date of the charge-off.  They could choose to wait years after taking a charge-off to report that fact to a CRA.

Once they have reported having taken a CO, they are then required to report the DOFD no later than 90 days after their reporting of the CO.

The DOFD is the relevant date, with credit report exclusion then becoming required no later than 7 years plus 180 days from that DOFD.

Additionally, while the current debts do not show an associated collection, it is common for a creditor to either assign collection authority to a debt collector or sell the delinquent debt after they have taken a charge-off.

Thus, any unpaid debt on a charged-off account has potential to also add a collection to your credit report at any time, adding further scoring damage and further complicating potential repayment options and/or atttempts at deletion of either the CO or collection.

Assuming the DOFD on each debt is approx 6 months prior to reporting of the associated charge-off, the earliest DOFD appears to be in approximately late 2016, and thus credit report exclusion wont occur until late 2023 or thereafter.

Additionally, what is the SOL period on each debt for your state?

Pay for deletion offers, if accepted,  would both discharge the debt and remove the CO if made to the creditor.

However once a collection reports, you can only PFD with either the creditor or debt collector, and not both, so one or other of either the charge-off or collection would likely remain even if you obtain a PFD.