Merrick Bank marking account as a charge-off every month since March...

[Anonymous]

...and also randomly marked it as a charge off for one month in 2018 (February) along with the initial charge off in 2017 (May).

Between those times, nothing had been reported.

Hi everyone, I'm a long time lurker and couldn't quite find what I was looking for, so I'm finally posting.

My primary concerns for this are that it's negatively impacting my utilization, as well as regularly reporting charged off now. I'm finally in a stable place after being laid off in 2016, and at this point just trying to blaze a path for credit score improvement going forward. If I could just get it to stop reporting each month that would be great, but I'm not sure how to even contact these folks. I've never received a notice for them, and I don't have an actual collections account (which is how I missed them). Is anyone else in this same predicament, and what did you do? This is strange to me, and I want to avoid actually calling them at costs, especially since I don't quite know what's going on with this account.

Not sure if this matters, but the amount owed is about $1000 and I'm willing to settle for the sake of it not reporting every month anymore.

Thanks!

[AllZero]

Is this your account?

If yes, then contact them. I don't know if they PFD Pay For Delete but it's something you can request when you pay the charge off.

[RobertEG]

A creditor can report the fact that they have taken a charge-off by reporting the CO amount to any CRA.

A creditor can also report CO as either the current status, or as the status of any prior month within the payment history profile.

The CRAs provide CO as an acceptable delinquency status, and any update where the debt remains delinquent can be reported as such either as the days since initial billing due date (e.g. 30/60/90, etc., late) or simply as CO if the debt has been charged off.

If a creditor fails reports a delinquency, such as CO, in a given month, but does not report the status under payment history profile for any number of months thereafter, that is common.  You can, if you choose, dispute the non-reported months under payment history profile as incomplete, but that will likely result in the addition of derogs for each and every intervening month up to the current date.  Most consumers dont pursue disputes that will result in addition of negative information, but you can choose to do so on the basis that their reporting is incomplete.

Each time they make updated reporting, that updates your scoring by effectively extending the date since initial delinquency.

Continued reporting of status as CO is not the improper reporting of multiple charge-offs, it is the acceptable reporting that the account is currently delinquent and was at some prior time subjected to a charge-off.

Paying the debt therafter prevents constinued reporting of delinquency, and then permits prior derogs to begin to age without being extended in length.