What Will Happen If I Have a Charge-Off On My Credit Report?
People often wonder if removing a charge-off from their credit report is possible. It can be done, but it may be difficult.
A typical charge-off scenario is where a borrower will miss several months of payments. These can be payments missed altogether or late payments. At this point, the creditor will try to reach you through phone calls or letters trying to get you to bring your account current. Once the creditor is convinced that it will not be able to collect from you, the creditor will often write-off the debt.
Negotiating a payment plan with the creditor is the best thing to do at this point in order to prevent the account from being sent to collections. It is best to contact your creditor and begin a dialogue with it as creditors are typically willing to make arrangements if you are experiencing a difficult time. It is never wise to ignore the attempts of your creditor to contact you.
It is important to understand that once your debt is written-off, your creditor may decide to pass or sell the debt to a collection agency. The collection agency will then attempt to collect the debt using any method of harassment and threat available to it, including the filing of a law suit to collect the debt.
Once reported to the credit reporting agencies, your charge-off can remain on your credit report for up to seven years. As you can imagine, your credit score will decrease substantially with a charge-off entry and your ability to obtain credit from any lender will be difficult to say the least. For this reason, you should try to remove charge-offs from your credit report.
A copy of your credit report will be needed to begin the process of removing a charge-off. When you have a copy of your credit report in hand, review it for any false or inaccurate information. If you discover any false or inaccurate information, you can write the credit reporting agency and request that it remove or revise the information. You will need to include copies of any documentation you have which corroborates your claim. If the credit reporting agency cannot verify the informaiton within 30 days, it must remove the entry from your credit report in its entirety.
If you contact the collection agency, it may be willing to come to an agreement with you. As you enter your negotiation with it, keep in mind that collection agencies purchase debt for cents on the dollar so the collection agency may well be willing to agree to a reduced total amount due. You can either offer a lump sum payment in exchange for this reduced amount or you can attempt to arrange a payment plan for the full amount. Above all, be sure that you obtain in writing an agreement which states the charge-off will be removed from your credit report or, at the very least, that the charge-off be reduced to a “paid” status.
To bring this information together, talk to your creditor and attempt to arrange a payment plan. If your debt does wind up with a collection agency, negotiate a removal of the charge-off credit entry once the account is paid in full .
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