Charge-offs will appear on your credit reports when you have a case of delinquency, if you stopped paying on a credit card or an installment loan. After about 6 months of not paying, the debt becomes severely delinquent. At this point the creditor can claim the whole unpaid balance and accumulated interest as a “CHARGE OFF”.
Depending on the type of the delinquent debt, charge-offs are shown under your credit report’s derogatory accounts section with a status of I9 or R9 and termed CHARGE OFF. This is absolutely not good since that will mean that the delinquent debt is deemed uncollectible and your credit rating and score will severely decline.
You can try to negotiate with the creditor to have the CHARGE-OFF removed from your credit reports in exchange for partial or full payment. This must be done directly with the creditor, not with an outside collection agency. The chances of success may depend on one of three things:
1. The amount of the debt and settlement offered.
2. The age of the item.
3. The particular creditor’s policies.
Everything must be in writing and all the paperwork from the exchange should be kept indefinitely. You really need to make sure that whoever negotiates on the creditor’s behalf, has the proper authority to deal with these issues.
Remember you have some leverage as a consumer, since you offer to satisfy the already written off debt. Thus, make sure to get a clear official written agreement before you pay. If you pay prior to getting such an agreement, then the creditor has no incentive whatsoever in removing the CHARGE OFF from your credit report.
Posted under delete charge-offs, equifax, experian, fix bad credit, improve FICO score, improve credit report, transunion
This post was written by fixbadcredit
