I recently settled a credit card account, which happened to be my oldest account. Instead of raising my credit score, it actually lowered stating I have a short credit history now.... thought settling outstanding debts was supposed to help? How do I raise my score??? Very frustrating!!!
To add, if the account has not been updated in a while, when you settled it used a current date making it look newer than it is. That is the only disadvantage to paying older debt.
That's exactly what it did. It put activity of 8/23/13 on an accout that had been inactive for a long time. I thought I was doing a good thing by paying out old debts since I would like to apply for a home mortgage in the near future, but this settlement lowered my score. Would it have been better to not settle the debt?
It is never a good idea not to pay debt but there are other ways to go about it. One would be to see if the LO even requires it to be paid. Some will, some won't.
Another is the PFD route, But now that it is paid send a GW letter and see if they will delete the TL.
