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I've been working since I was 16 years old and I've had sparkling credit my entire life. I pay my cards in full every month; never missed a payment for 10+ year
by mcntsh 4y ago
I've been working since I was 16 years old and I've had sparkling credit my entire life. I pay my cards in full every month; never missed a payment for 10+ years, paid off my car early.
I moved abroad and forgot about a $30 dollar balance with AT&T which brought my FICO score to 600. One 30 dollar bill means I can no longer qualify for a mortgage or a car payment or anything.
- goatherders 4y agoPay it off. Wait a month. You'll be fine.
- mcntsh 4y agoIt went to collections. That stays on your credit for 3-5 years.
- goatherders 4y agoIncorrect. Pay it off in full. They will report that to the credit folks and it will be removed.
- valeness 4y agoThis is patently false. They will remove it if they are feeling particularly jolly when you call and ask. But they are under no obligation to do so and they have denied this action to me before.
- gaadd33 4y agoThey do have to mark it as paid at least under the FCRA if you are in the US.
- parkingrift 4y agoI’ve been in this situation and you can make repayment contingent upon deleting the negative remarks. As in you send me a letter certifying you’ll delete the remark, and I will remit payment. If they refuse then you can just refuse to pay until they relent. Their only alternative is to take you to court or sell to the next collection agency down the line. Creditors and collection agencies won’t take that action except as an absolute last resort.
- FireBeyond 4y agoOne of the challenges with this is that technically the TOS between a creditor and the CRA forbids the practice of "pay for delete". So you may get lucky, but oftentimes, you may not.
- goatherders 4y agoRephrase: my credit was a disaster in my 20's. I paid off dozens of collections accounts in my 30s. All of them were removed. My personal experience has been that it is 100% true that, if paid in full, the item is removed. Better?
- roflyear 4y agoThis is incorrect. They do not have to remove it. They can, if you ask nice, but they do not have to.
- bluedino 4y agoOther creditors are worried you would move abroad and forget to pay them for years.
- mcntsh 4y agoFor sure it's a valid concern and warrants a mark on my record probably but a 30 dollar bill after 10+ years of pristine activity basically removing my ability to take out a loan is a little unfair.
- bryans 4y agoThat's actually not true. If you pay the collection agency, the derogatory mark gets removed within weeks. You also typically only need to pay half the amount. If they try to get you to pay the whole thing, just tell them you're using your tax refund to pay off debts, but you only have $X left, where X is half the amount owed.
- alostpuppy 4y agoThat’s not my experience. The only derogatory items on my credit report are medical debts I have long since paid off.
- bryans 4y agoYou have the legal right and ability to remove any mark if you've paid it off. Both of the agencies have online options for removal requests. https://www.experian.com/disputes/main.html https://www.experian.com/disputes/main.html https://www.transunion.com/credit-disputes/dispute-your-credit https://www.transunion.com/credit-disputes/dispute-your-cred...
- alostpuppy 4y ago
- throwaway98797 4y agocredit scores recover quick you could cause six figure loses to a bank by short selling your home and still have workable credit within 2 years
- Mezzie 4y agoI declared Chapter 7 two and a half years ago and I currently have a score in the mid-700s. Granted, my bankruptcy was due to medical stuff rather than irresponsibility.
- MisterSandman 4y agoThat's awful to hear, hope you're doing better now.
- Mezzie 4y agoMy fortunes have improved dramatically, mostly due to the pandemic, ironically. I need remote work and have some background in Instructional Design. I'm FAR more valuable now than I was 3 years ago. Odd how that works.
- leet_thow 4y agoI had a similar thing happen to me. I disputed the charge via Credit Karma, explaining that the service never worked so I never paid. It was removed within a few days.
- upupandup 4y agofor me it was AWS/DO billing. I lost the original phone number/email attached to it which makes it impossible for me to login to that account. I just no longer rely on credit or use credit cards anymore. I buy everything with cash. Funny enough my bank is constantly calling me that they can lend me money. Our modern Credit/interest/rent system is parasitic at best. In some cultures, it is deemed immoral and outright banned. However I don't know what the alternative is. Who would lend money without any expectation of return? Who would buy bonds if they cannot sell it for a higher price?
- daniel-thompson 4y agoA grey-hat method of dealing with this would be to dispute it with Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian and choose a plausible dispute reason ("I never knew about it" or whatever). Regardless of the merits of the claim, it's likely their "investigation" will resolve in your favor and they'll just remove it (and your score will bounce back immediately). It doesn't necessarily feel great... but remember that you're literally just a number that they couldn't care less about.
- brundolf 4y agoAt some point, when a system is so broken and unjust, I think it's no longer unethical to exploit it given the opportunity
- bondolo 4y agoWhen was it ever just or working?
- PascLeRasc 4y agoIf this doesn't work, submit another dispute around Thanksgiving - the creditors have 30 days to respond before it's automatically resolved in your favor. In my experience it does actually feel good to do this.
- ryathal 4y agoI doubt this would work. Credit reports are for lenders, and credit bureaus side with their true customer.
- astura 4y agoThe FCRA requires them to prove you owe the debt. Debt collectors often can't do this, especially if your debt has been resold - these are often resold as an Excel spreadsheet.
- daniel-thompson 4y agoYMMV but it's worked for me.
- bcassedy 4y agoI've had a similar experience when changing mobile provider. For whatever reason it seems like that last bill posts late and never shows up. In the past I didn't have autopay turned on so I just didn't even know about the debt until I started getting letters from collections firms 6 months later. I imagine that these last bill things end up dinging a lot of people's credit. Luckily I've paid them when I find out about them and my credit bounces back once the payment in full is reported.
- MisterSandman 4y agoThis is a bit misleading. One missed payment doesn't lead your score to drop by so much. I'm assuming you never found out about it and it went to collections because you never paid the bill for a year or more.