what’s the best way to do this to preserve credit
score?
@roy and @sadierose555 were helpful answering a similar question I had about a bill in collections.
FrugalFanny posted:
what’s the best way to do this to preserve credit
score?
If it is already in collections, settling it will show that it has now been paid (as long as you make that a condition in your negotiations) your credit score will show the problem did exist but paying the debt will positively impact it and time without more derogatory issues will heal it. I know nothing about credit repair or how to do it. My advice is tread carefully on that one, make sure they are reputable because there are lots of scammers out there,
I do think that the best thing you can do is to attack these issues aggressively, they will haunt you until you deal with them and the lower the settlement figure the more of them you can deal with right?
if you make a payment on a collection account it starts the collection clock all over with. A paid collection item or an unpaid account both sit on your record as a collection account. You do not get a higher score by paying off an old collection account. They will still remain on your credit report for seven years as a collection account and drag down your score.
Collection agencies will almost NEVER agree to remove the item from your credit even if you pay it off. Not in my experience anyways. So it is still a ding.
If you can get the debt given back to the original creditor you have some hope of getting it removed if you pay back the original creditor. Dispute collection accounts that have been sold to multiple agencies because usually they have no information on the original debt and they are uncollectable and the credit bureau will delete them at no cost.
How do u dispute the accounts with credit bureau
@robin.smith It looks like for 2 of them, they handle all disputes online and one has contact info you can get in touch with them at.
Here is a helpful article I found that explains how it works.
