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Hi all - I have recently signed up and spent the last several days on this site crawling for info and have found some amazing things. I have so much more to learn and I appreciate you bearing with me as I get acclimatised to the ins and outs of credit rebuild and repair. Long story short, I lost work for a period of time and ate through savings later falling behind. I have paid off the majority of my balances and only have two accounts on my report that have charged off. I will outline my accounts below. I have used companies like SkyBlue Credit Repair, Lexington Law and have talked to WJA in hopes of receiving some help with late removals etc. All three failed to do what they promised and I sadly wasted money on them.
How can I remove the lates that I have? I have tried GW but it has not worked.
How can I take care of the CO's? Should I pay the full balance or should I settle?
BMW Fin Services: 4, 30 day Lates in a row. They wont even hear me out. Refuse to talk to me. CR note says: "Current, was past due 30 days four times"
Thanks for the advice! The Barclay CO was 11/16 and does not report any more. The Capital one is continuing to report "failed to pay" however it was charged off in 2013. I think they still are within the SOL. I do have open positive accounts. My loans are also all current.
Discover Card that is positive, 10% Utilization on $1,100 CL.
Wells Fargo 5% Utilization on a $800 CL,
Jcrew 0% utilization on a 300 Dollar CL,
Credit One 10% Utilization on a $650 dollar CL.
@TalentMaven.
Welcome to the forum! The charged off accounts (speaking from experience) should be paid off ASAP. I have 2 that I am working with and they will seriously continue to suppress your score even when you are doing well with new accounts reporting on time payments. I have one account that I am settling for 50% (Discover $1348 will be my payment that goes out wednesday) and another charge off ( BOA $1135) that I will pay in full. My accounts were charged off in 2014 and I am ready to put this behind me. Also from what I've read around the forum, a paid charge off looks better on your report and zeros out your balance, therefore its no longer affecting your utilization.
@Cherekas wrote:@Anonymous.
Welcome to the forum! The charged off accounts (speaking from experience) should be paid off ASAP. I have 2 that I am working with and they will seriously continue to suppress your score even when you are doing well with new accounts reporting on time payments. I have one account that I am settling for 50% (Discover $1348 will be my payment that goes out wednesday) and another charge off ( BOA $1135) that I will pay in full. My accounts were charged off in 2014 and I am ready to put this behind me. Also from what I've read around the forum, a paid charge off looks better on your report and zeros out your balance, therefore its no longer affecting your utilization.
When I paid the one charge off I had that was still reporting every month (paid in full that is) - my scores jumped 30-40 points. Yes it still shows that it was a charged off account, but the balance is now $0 and it says paid in full.
@JGGM.
Thats awesome to know and I am looking forward to that update for myself as well. Was that the only negative reporting on your account? I have 2 charged off accounts so I anticipate my biggest increase to come after my second one is paid. Second one will be paid by July so I will hopefully see my increases by August.
My opinion is that it is oftgen a waste of time, energy and frustration to try and get goodwill removal of delinquencies. Lenders don't really have a reason to do this for you and actually take some risk when they do because they are supposed to report accurately to the credit agencies. During my rebuild I focused on the things I could control, having postive trade lines, managing utlization, account mix, monitoring my credit closely and working to resolve open collections. In mid 2014 I had low to mid 500's and anticipate I will go over 700 any day now. I also have many old lates, mostly 30 days but some 90 days on student loans. What I have found through my research and experience is as those age they have less and less impact. 2 years seems to be the first threshold and then they get progressively less impactful after that. I even had an IRS lien that once it aged it became much less of a factor.
You have tried to get these lates removed and of course the rebuild companies could not get them removed because they are legit. Rather than putting energy into that effort move forward. You can get this done with those on your report. Just do all you can to make sure you put your best foot forward from now on.
Also, I would settle those charge offs for sure. They will improve your scores.
@workingfor850 thank you for the advice. I will pay off the Cap 1 in full and will settle on the barcalys. Need to stop the bleeding. Really appreciate the guidance here.
@workingfor850 this makes total sense and I hear you but sometimes the stories of all of the people who get deletions can make someone hope. Not sure if they are stories or just pure luck. I will say that I was successful in removing 3 lates from Credit One with just one round of GW letters.