subject: How You Can Erase Collections From Your Credit Report [print this page] If you have a collections entry on your credit report, one of two things has happened, either you have failed to pay on one of your loans for an extended period of time or there is a mistake on your credit report. Whichever of these scenarios applies to you, with a little bit of work, you can get your collections entry removed.
Let's take a look at how the process works when somebody doesn't pay a bill. Let's assume that you have a credit card from the First Bank of Prosperity but for some reason you have missed a payment. The bank will give you a courtesy call not long after the bill was due but still, you fail to pay.
This process continues for six months. After that period of time, your account will go to collections. If it's a large company, they may have a collections department as part of their company. If it's a smaller company or they find it cheaper to outsource, they will send your account to a collections company.
At that time, the collections company will purchase the debt for pennies on the dollar and begin calling and attempting to contact you to get the debt paid. During all of this, an entry will appear on your credit report stating that the account is in collections.
The first thing you have to do is dispute the collections entry. You have to do this with all three credit bureaus by sending a letter to each. An e-mail will not work in this case. From that point, they will contact the company who placed the entry in your file. They have thirty days to provide proof and the burden of proof is on them. If they fail to provide verification, the entry will be removed. Often, companies will not go through the time or money to find the paperwork and will simply not respond.
If the entry is correct, often you can negotiate with the collections agency. If you agree to pay a certain amount in a predetermined time frame, they will remove the collections entry from your report. All is not lost if you have a collections entry in your file. Follow the steps above and a little bit of work may pay off. If it is a mistake, keep in mind that these entries will stay on your report for seven years so it's well worth your time to get it removed.
At the end of the day whatever you do do not just give up and live with this negative item on your credit history. You can remove it and without erasing it, it will be very difficult to create a good fico score for yourself. This is a result of the collection being the item that is damaging and bringing down your score.
