Is there a way to scrub this account off my credit report?

[Anonymous]

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Crappy-credit-due-to-electricity-bills-how-do...

That was me, obviously. The DTE Energy account that was negative is now paid off in full, and the account has been closed, since I moved away. Is there any way to scrub this account off my credit report? I am totally unfamiliar with these things, and I know I'm probably asking a question that has been asked a million times before. If there is a way, what are the steps?

[Anonymous]

 should add that this never went into collection. This is all original creditor.

[DrJim]

You can write a GW.  Explain how you were trying to help your mother, and that the account is paid in full.  Keep writing them each month until they agree to remove it.  You'll find plenty of examples for GW's on the forums.

It might help if we know what the CT says.  How many 30,60,90 days late?

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but what is a GW?

The first bill that was missed was due April 21st of that year, and it went delinquent until August 20th. They shut off the electrictity, and THEN my mother got her act together and went on the payment plan. It was not fully paid off for months after that, though, as she was still on that plan, paying the thing every month.

[DrJim]

GW = Good Will letter.

What does your credit report say?  It will list the number of lates and what the derog is: 30, 60, 90, 120 days late.

You mentioned your scores in a previous post.  Did you get those from MyFICO or elsewhere?

[RobertEG]

Hi backspace!

As Dr Jim said, it is all about what is in your credit report.

The first principal of credit reporting is that payment of a prior account or debt never, by simple payment, removes the prior reporting of any delinquencies reported on the debt.

The second principal of credit reporting is that accounts remain until such time as the account holder requests deletion.  There is really no provision of the FCRA that ever compels account deletion upon consumer request.

The best you can do is to request deletion of specific reporting of prior information under any OC account.

So line up each prior derog reported on the account.  Its date.

Then you can request deletion of one or more, for your own compelling reasons.

The creditor has no obligation to delete, or even respond, to a reqiested deletion of prior, accurate reporting.

You must persuade them of some reason to grant a good-will exception for you.

[Anonymous]

It says 120 days late.

It was FICO.

Unfortunately, I just discovered something awful, and I am so upset I want to cry on Sept. 10th I paid a bill that had gone into collections...but I apparently paid it just a few days too late to prevent the credit hit. I hadn't realized that. My score is actually 561 now Now I have two negative things on my credit report, and my score is lower. Do I have any chance of getting NCO Financial to remove this off my report? I've heard only bad things about them..

[RobertEG]

What you now have is a 120-day late posted by the OC, and a CO posted by the debt collector.

Unfortunately, that compounds your deletion requests.

GW to the CA, even if accepted, wont compel any deletion by the OC

GW to the OC, again even if accepted, wont compel any deletion by the CA.

So you apparently now have two separate GW deletions to pursue.

[Anonymous]

The 120 days late thing was separate; that was a utility company, and it was posted over a year ago.

This new thing happened just a few days ago, and it was a medical bill being collected by an agency. If NCO Financial will drop that, will I still have to pursue the hospital, even only the collection agency appears on my report? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Is there any chance I paid this before it actually appeared on my report? I paid on the 9th (money did not go out of my bank acc til the 10th, however), and I got an alert on the 11th that something had changed in my report...

[RobertEG]

In my opinion, no.

Once the debt collector was granted collection authority by the OC in date one, they then had the right to post that collection activity to your CR at any time after that date.

When they ultimately posted the collection referral to the CRA would, in my opinion, be divorced from the issue of any subsequent payment of the debt on date two, after its referral to them.