How To Remove A Charge Off From Your Credit Report

This article will look at how to remove a charge off from your credit report

. Before we do this, we will first look at exactly what charge off is, and how it got on your credit report in the first place.

In short, a charge off is the point at which your credit card company decides that it will be unable to retrieve your credit card debt from you, and decides to write it off. This will usually follow an ongoing period of missed and/or late credit card payments by you, and a number of letters and phone calls from them to you asking you to rectify your account.

After around about six months of such behavior the credit company will decide that 'enough is enough', and charge off the debt. If you are at this stage you are not alone - a recent report showed that the national annual credit card charge off rate has risen above 10%, as an increasing number of customers are unable to make their payments in this tough financial climate.

Once the charge off has been made you will be unable to make further purchases using your credit card. This step may even have been taken several weeks prior to this point, depending on the severity of your debt. A charge off does not mean that the debt has disappeared - it has simply been passed on to a debt collections agency.

A charge off is bad news for your credit report, and will severely damage your hopes of being approved for any credit product any time in the near future. With this in mind, it is helpful to know how to remove a charge off from your credit report.

The first step is to access a copy of your credit report (this can be done for free) and check that the reason for the charge off is in fact accurate. Inaccurate or unverifiable charge offs can be disputed and removed by writing a dispute letter to the credit bureau.

If a credit bureau has placed charge-off information on your file, they must be able to provide proof that this information is correct, so it makes sense to dispute everything in writing and request proof. It is possible to pay a company to do this for you, or with a little time and effort you can do it yourself.

If this step fails to work, the next option is to contact the collections agency. This will be a company that has bought the debt from your credit card company at a reduced rate, and may be willing to settle for a part payment of the debt if you pay them a lump sum, or set up a monthly payment plan with them.

The key here is to negotiate and remain firm; they may threaten to take you to court unless you pay the debt immediately in full, but if you simply cannot afford to pay more than a certain amount there is no point landing yourself in further financial trouble by stretching yourself beyond your means.

When negotiating with any collections agency, make sure that payment will also remove the charge off from your credit report. Any charge off is a negative, but a paid and removed charge off is far better than one that is still on your credit report and preventing you from being accepted for a mortgage or other financial product.

by: William Trustey

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