New to the board and have questions...

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2004
New to the board and have questions...
1
Mon, 01-31-2005 - 4:02pm

Hello~I'm new to the board and have a couple of questions....My hus and I had always had good credit until and quit my job to stay home with my new baby a few years ago. So now I am back to work for a little over a year now. While off, I had a very hard time keeping up on the bills and around Christmas a few years ago thought, "I want the family to have a nice Christmas so I'll put these all of till next month and get caught up." (never do that btw)So I was never able to get caught up and let it get out of control. So to make a long story short....I settled with my three cc's. For example the third and final that I am working on right now was a 3600.00 bal and we settled for 2k. I make two large payments a month and it will be paid off in April. My question is this....

I pulled my credit report last month and the other two that we had settled with still show small balances. One cc for example had a bal was $3,637. They agreed to take 3k. My credit report reads "Now paying/was a charge off" and shows the bal being 637. My husband says that I should not have to pay the 637 bc we agreed to 3K. But it still shows a bal. So I started making payments to this. Once the 637 is paid down will it still show a charge off? Will paying the 637 and the 347 on the other help repair my credit?? I am trying hard now that I am working to repair this but am unsure if it will take the Charge offs or Settlement notations out of my credit report. Mind you once the 3rd bill is paid, I will have 1,600 to pay on it. Any ideas on how this works would be appreciated. I am ask because I'm wondering if paying the balances left from the settlements is worth it or if I should be taking that money and putting it towards my student loan that I need to catch myself up on also.

Thank you to all that reply in adavance!!

lee

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Mon, 01-31-2005 - 10:27pm
Settlements aren't good for your credit, but neither are charge-offs. If you wanted and agreed to the settlement, I would call the company up and have them report it correctly on your report as settled/paid. At this point, the best thing you can do for your credit is to start paying all your bills ontime and especially anything on your report such as credit cards and car loans/mortgages. Over time those old debts will become less important and the newer, better credit history will help your score.

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