Hola Everyone! Long time follower and recent member actively going back and forth on advice from the Community here at myFICO forums in order to re-build positive credit and have been building good financial habits. I have two derogatory marks that I am looking to get removed from my credit report:
(1) Portfolio Recovery bought a debt ($800) from Capital One that I have been disputing for almost 6 months now and was finally removed from Equifax bringing my score to a whomping 750; continues to report to TransUnion and Experian. This collection began reporting on Jun/Jul 2018. I don't recall owing this debt or having a Capital One card back in 2016. PRA continues to send verification by sending a letter from Capital One dated 2016 with a former Houston address stating that the debt is owed and sold to PRA. I was living in Austin in 2016. lived in Houston in 2014.
(2) Charge-Off from 2015 ($7,000) on a car I once owned through a credit union that was repossessed. This one I recall and I was in grad school and could not continue making the payments due to not making enough money and choosing to have a roof over my head and food in my stomach. Regardless, this debt is scheduled to come off in May of 2022. This debt is reporting to Experian only.
Question: Do you advise I send goodwill letters to the two companies (Capital One and Credit Union), apologizing for the past, explaining the present, and expressing my goals for the future in an attempt to get these items removed from my credit report at the aforementioned bureaus?
I currently have two cards with Capital One (one of two years and another of 6+ months) that I have been an excellent customer, always paying on time, zero balance, etc. TIA!
@Mdg1307 wrote:If you have the $$ available o would suggest to pay the portfolio recovery( cap1) collection since it's there policy to delete upon payment. You can negotiate a settlement too and pay that, and they'll delete upon paid to full agreement.
Thanks! That was not an option I was trying to explore because at the moment I am trying to keep expenses low and continue to build my emergency fund and move to a new place. Definitely something to keep in my back pocket if and when the time comes. I am more curious if Capital One will accept a goodwill letter even though the debt has been passed off but I would much rather see more concrete evidence from the collection agency that bought the debt from CapOne.
@ultimaterewardsguy357 wrote:
@Mdg1307 wrote:If you have the $$ available o would suggest to pay the portfolio recovery( cap1) collection since it's there policy to delete upon payment. You can negotiate a settlement too and pay that, and they'll delete upon paid to full agreement.
Thanks! That was not an option I was trying to explore because at the moment I am trying to keep expenses low and continue to build my emergency fund and move to a new place. Definitely something to keep in my back pocket if and when the time comes. I am more curious if Capital One will accept a goodwill letter even though the debt has been passed off but I would much rather see more concrete evidence from the collection agency that bought the debt from CapOne.
Is the CapOne tradeline still showing the outstanding balance due, or is it reporting $0?
If a creditor sells a debt, they must update their tradeline to reflect $0. If the tradeline from the original creditor is still showing a balance, then that means they still own the debt and simply assigned collection authority to the collection agency. In this case, you can try to pay CapOne directly and request the recall the collection which will terminate PRA's collection authority and prompt removal of the collection tradeline from your reports. The original CapOne tradeline will remain, but be updated to reflect payment.
If CapOne refuses to accept payment directly, and refers you to the collection agency, then you'll have to make payment arrangements through them. As stated, PRA will delete upon payment, they will also notify CapOne that payment has been made and, in turn, CapOne will update their tradeline to reflect $0.
You will have no success with a Goodwill on an unpaid debt. You need to pay first, then Goodwill.
The outstanding auto loan could probably be settled for much, much less than the balance owed... If you want to go that route... but you are highly unlikely to get a Goodwill deletion without satisfying the debt first. That's not how goodwills work.
