You want to remove collections from credit because it obviously hurts your credit rating and may hinder your future chance of getting a loan for a house, car or even your education. Whatever your reason for repairing your credit there are a few basic steps you can take in order to improve your credit rating.
Your best chance for improving your credit rating is by removing collections from credit reports. The older a collection gets on your report it may hurt your rating less but it still affects your score and remains visible for potential lenders. Let the credit bureau know with proof that it has been in delinquency for more than 7 years.
You don’t have to pay a debt that is not yours. If a collector is hounding you for a debt that you did not acquire, you are not obligated to pay it. You can use a credit report dispute form in order to have it removed from your credit report.
If the debt is in fact yours, that does not necessarily mean a collector can actually demand payment. If a collector has contacted you within the past 30 days, ask them to validate your debt. This means that they will have to provide proof that this is your debt. If a collector does not oblige and doesn’t provide proof and ignores your request you can remove the collections from credit.
FCRA, or the Fair Credit Reporting Act, makes sure that accounts that are delinquent for more than 7 years are deleted from a credit report. 7 years beginning from the first date of your delinquency you can have your bad debt removed from your credit report.
Dispute the debt that has been on your credit report for more than 7 years in order to help your credit rating. If you have any evidence of the first date of delinquency this will help speed up the process in order to remove collections from credit.
Collectors will most likely sell the debt you owe to them at an estimate of every 6 months. So the agency. ‘s name that appears on your credit report probably is not the agency that you actually are in debt to. In this case, you can actually have the collection deleted from your credit report.
When the above options don’t work for you can try to negotiate with your collector. Ask if you can pay off your debt in return the collector will remove collections from credit report. Make sure you have a signed agreement to this extent.
If you do your negotiating over the phone, make sure you receive a letter of agreement that is signed from the collector. Do not make payment otherwise. Once you’ve made payment make sure the collection is removed from your report. Otherwise, contact the credit bureau with evidence of payment and they should be able to remove it from your credit report.
If none of the above options work for you in getting your collections removed your last resort is paying off the debt. When a potential lender sees that you have made amends with your debt it may work in your favor.
