@reneasworld wrote:So, I have one negative medical collection that is showing on my account. It shows it date of first delinquency in 2010 and date first reported by agency as Feb 2011. I had insurance and for some reason it was never paid and the hospital had the incorrect address. When it showed up, of course it had exceedd time limit of payment. I just was mad and did not pay because I was furious that a hospital clerical error (they wrote down the wrong address by composing numbers) meant I had to pay a bill that should have been covered. The collect is for 550. I was goingto let it drop off in two but I am wondering about the impact on my score. I know medical collections are not suppose to weigh as heavy anymore and this is the only collection on my report and the only negative on all my reports. I have a 100% on time reporting with the exception of one report and the one late is from over 10 years ago but I do not want the account deleted because it helps with my AAoA. This brings me to my question. I have been working more on bringing my UTI down on my credit cards. I am at 45% overall UTI but should I go ahead and just pay the collection account. Would this give me a large amount of points? I also wanted to refinance my car and was wondering if this was a factor for APR?
Current FICO scores: EQ 630 EXP: 659 TU: 640
I expect them to go up in a couple of weeks when some new balances report and a closed CC which previously had a balance is now pif.
Have the account deleted. AAoA gets too much credit here. It simply is not worth much in FICO scoring. Once you reach a few years, it no longer matters. Cut away that account like the cancer that it is. Your FICO score will get a boost from that, much more than any fantasy AAoA impact.
The medical collection is $550 which seems to be more than $100, so is thus likely impacting your score as well. Given the age of these two baddies, and your score still in the mid-600's it seems to me you want to take action to get the medical collection corrected as well. Was the amount paid? Pay for deletion? Maybe a dispute letter is in order if it was paid by the insurance. Check with others who have gone through this but you want that incorrect collection off your reports.
Then you can look at utilization as the next phase of your score rebuild.
To put it simply:
You have an account with a certain age. That account has a negative as part of the experience of that account. The negative outweighs, by a long shot, any positive from that account history. It is a negative account.
Get rid of the account, and the negative goes away. When all your negatives are taken care of, are off your reports, scores rise. It's best to deal with each negative in the most efficient way to get rid of that negative.
