If charge offs appear on my credit report, will paying them change my credit score?

I made the mistake of getting several high interest, small credit line cards. When I became unemployed and unable to pay, the penalities skyrocketed. One bill went from around $400 to over $2500 in a few months. %26#039;%26#039;Offers of settlement%26#039;%26#039; started coming in but they all demanded one lum sum payments. Debt consolidation is not an option. Has anyone found a way to pay in installments and after paying these debts, how is your credit score changed? Thanks.

If charge offs appear on my credit report, will paying them change my credit score?

Charge offs, paid or unpaid, remain for 7 years from date of last activity. Credit reporting agencies do not forget to remove them; they purge automatically.

Paying a charge off won%26#039;t remove it, but not paying can cause a judgment to be filed, and that also can remain for 7 years from date filed.

Paying a large debt may increase your score somewhat, but, also, future creditors look at unpaid charge offs less favourably than paid charge offs.

If charge offs appear on my credit report, will paying them change my credit score?

That is a very mature attitude. Congratulations on recognizing past mistakes and striving to work toward fixing them. Report It

If charge offs appear on my credit report, will paying them change my credit score?

You can work with the people you own with to see if they can work something out as far as installments go.

If the debt is paid, the score will be better since you dont owe anyone any money anymore. However the history of the debt stays on the credit report for many years.

If charge offs appear on my credit report, will paying them change my credit score?

After my husband lost his job, we could not pay our cards either. We also occurred %26quot;write-offs%26quot; We later filed for bancrupcy thinking that it would take care of all of those %26quot;write-offs%26quot; showing up on our credit history. Later, we realized that we should have just left things alone. No matter how much you had owed or when the %26quot;write-off%26quot; occured, that bad mark on your credit will dissapear exactly seven years after the date of your first late or missed payment in connection with that account. And for us, it was easier waiting for it to dissapear than to pay it off. Besides, paying it off will only show that you have less debt, the blemishes on your credit will remain for seven years, regardless. Our score did suffer for a bit, but we eventually got a new card with a crappy intrest rate and very small credit limit just so we could rebuild our credit. Getting a new card and always paying it full on time every month will slowly add points to your score. And recheck your credit report every year and make sure that stuff that is supposed to be taken off does dissapear. Sometimes the reporting companies %26quot;forget%26quot; to take things off at the end of the mandatory 7 years.

If charge offs appear on my credit report, will paying them change my credit score?

REdsoxfan is correct. Not paying can cause more trouble than it%26#039;s worth. I tried that wait 7 years thing, and it never made it 7 years it turned into a judgment that I ended up getting garnished for. That made my score worse than it would have been had I just paid it. I will tell you this, if you pay it even if your score doesn%26#039;t change much, you have more leverage if you go into a credit union or bank and ask for a loan. When you sit down with the loan officer they%26#039;ll see that you%26#039;ve had some bad things but you%26#039;ve paid them.