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Question

I just found out when I did a free credit report online that my score has dropped over 200 points in one year. The ONLY thing on my credit score (after doing some research) that is negative is a cable/net bill that has been in collections for 2 years. I never recieved any notices on this and forgot to pay it (my roomies actually owed it but it was in my name so that is why it was forgotton). I did provide a forwarding address but I know that doesnt always work either.

Anyways... could my score drop that much over one thing in collections? How can I right my wrong on this and bring my score back up? The bill for the cable/net has no extra fee's on it and they just said to come into the local company and pay it and it'll all be taken care of. Does that mean it will come off my report? It's also for less than $200 if that makes any difference at all.

Answer 1

It depends on how the company works but it probably won't come off your credit report.  Paying it off while help you score start to rebound somewhat though.  I would kill you roommates if I were you for not paying it.

Answer 2

First of all, if your bill has been in the hands of the collection agency for two years, my suggestion would be to negotiate a deal with them, meaning: dont pay the whole bill. Tell them that you can only pay $100 or may be $60. Trust me, they will take it. And also tell them about your roomies, how did they not pay their portion and so on and so forth. You are not to blame is the message that you want to carry on with both the cable company and the collection agency.

Next step is to challenge the credit bureas saying that you have the receipt for the payment, and you would really appreciate if they took an immediate action correcting their files. Just attach the receipt with the letter from the cable company and/or the collection agency and send it in.

Be aggressive. We all have to fight for our credit.

Let me know

Answer 3

First, it would help to know how your score is broken down:

1. Payment history- 35%

2. Total debt owed to available credit ratio-30%

3. Length of time establishing credit-15%

4. Types of credit established-10%

5. Inquiries and New accounts-10%

As you can see, factor #1 counts the most, since it's more than a ⅓ of your score. Paying any and all your bills on time, is more important than anything else. If you miss a payment after 30 days, your score can drop, 60 days it plummets even further, 90 days, even more, and after that, well you can probably see that if you're just now finding out after 2 years, it's already done the majority of the damage that it's going to do, which is the good news since activity within the past 2 years has the affects your credit the most.

Now, something that you should know is that simply paying the collection at this point isn't going to help your score much, if at all. It's done as much damage as it going to do even if you didn't even do anything else and let it stop reporting after 7½ years. If you decide to take care of this, keep in mind that unless you can negotiate a "pay to delete", which is a payment in exchange for removing it from the credit report, it won't help your credit any more than if you do nothing. You have to get it removed as if it never happened to get the best results for restore your rating.

Answer 4

If you dont have much good credit to counter it then yea its going to drop majorly. Best thing is to take care of it. I dont think it will right what has already been taken out. But it will prevent more negative scores.