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I just pulled my credit score (i already have all 3 reports) and see that I'm at 501. I'm right between poor and very poor as a rating.

I have a spreadsheet of all my debts (all but one are collections). I am only interested in the ones that have a "fall off" date of 2009 or later since the ones going to fall off in the next year and a half are of no interest to me as of right now. The debts are split between 17 companies and are a little under $15,000. I do not make much now but when my second job kicks in I will have quite a bit more to start paying these people off.

I do have one credit card that is R9 but they have worked an arrangement with me that if I enter a repayment program they will put it back into R1 status but will leave it closed. I went for this since R1 is better than R9.

My question(s):
1) Does paying off a collection help your credit score at all or is it more if a lender actually pulls and reviews your report?
2)Does asking a company to remove it ever work and if so how often (i.e. 25%, 50%, etc)?
3) What are the best ways to raise my score other than the obvious pay my bills on time and lower my debt-to-income ratio?
4) Any other suggestions, ideas, advice, anything?

Thanks and sorry so wordy.

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 7:46 am Subject:

1. Paid collection scored same as unpaid.It would look better on a manual review or mortgage pull.
2.Pfd's work but there are no known published results.It will vary from each creditor.
3.In addition to paying your bills,you need to start adding good credit to your file to start offsetting the bad credit.
4. Go to www.ftc.gov and read the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act & the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Knowing these two laws will give you a real edge in building your credit back up and settling your debts. I would also suggest you read your state laws on statute of limitations for debts. Lastly go to www.annualcreditreport.com and pull a report from all three bureaus to see how everything reports. I can help with disputes to correct reporting errors and there are a few more here who can share that knowledge.

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 7:51 am Subject:

I am currently in the same situation, i just settled 2 accounts and i just paid off 2 creidt cards and i am working on paying a judgement from last year on one credit report, and an old utility bill from 2005. I have 4 big items coming off next year which i am not touching. My equifax score went up a few points, as well as my experian score. I want everything in the negative to have paid by it. Then in a few months i am going to distpute the paid items, hopefully i will not get a respond and the credit agencies will delete the items. I have done that before on some paid off items and it seems to work.