amex optima card

My Amex was charged off in 2007 and I received the same letter a few times last year. I was finally in a position to take care of the debt by either settling or paying in full and getting the new card. I went through a lot of steps to verify this offer was even real and was skeptical until the day I received the card. I called the Amex Executive Offices in NYC, faxed them a copy of the offer and they replied confirming the offer was real. Sorry if this is so long but have been dealing with a few chargeoffs for almost two years now and I relied on posts like these to help. I figure it's my turn. Since you are not charged off yet, I would contact the Executive Offices of Amex in NYC and ask them to re-age the account in exchange for full payment. I tried everything imaginable before I paid in full. It's worth a shot to ask. If not here's what happens. My old account is on my credit report as a "Paid Charge Off". It shows $0 balance. They will then insert a completely new account from American Express with the new card they send you. Of course i still want the Charged off account removed from my report BUT Amex helps you out by listing the open date of the new account as the date you ORIGINALLY became an Amex card member. So while you will have a bad account listed from Amex with late payment history it will at least have a zero balance due. Then you also get a new account on your credit report with no negative payment history AND it immediately looks like an established account which helps your score a lot. Mine says for example that it has been open since 2005 (my original card date) and has no negative payment history. It's a crappy situation overall, but what they are doing by even offering a new card is amazing and too good to pass up. I have had mine since October, I use it every month for random things, then I pay it in full. My credit score also has gone up 42 points in 7 months. I could probably write for another hour so ask if have any more questions. If you can think of it, I have probably tried or dealt with it fixing my credit I messed up.

so they will not remove the charge off account in exchange for the new one? How badly does the co account hurt your credit score

I have read in a few posts online that some people have had success in getting them to overwrite the account. I sent a letter requesting this back in Jan which was about 4 months after I had paid the old account and had been using my new account. They replied with a letter stating they could not do this. I plan to write another letter soon and try again. I have no idea how one charge off affects a score. But whatever your score is right now, whatever payment status they are reporting is most likely how they will report it in the future except your score will get better on the deliquent aaccount because it will show a paid and $0 balance. The bad payment history is there no matter what.

These are great responses so far. Here is my situation. My account was charged off from AMEX a long time ago. It actually does not show up on my credit report. They are still trying to collect the debt. I recently was offered the Optima Card if I pay the debt in full.

I have also found out you can't get a corporate AMEX if you have a past debt with AMEX. I would love to take this offer. One to establish my relationship with AMEX again. Two, to get a corporate AMEX with my company.

Any thoughts?

Thanks