How to Remove a Charge-off from Your Credit Report

| Tedis Baboumian |

If you’ve had credit problems in the past and were unable to make payments for more than 120 days, your creditor may have charged off your loan. A charge-off appears as a negative item on your credit report, and once it’s there, you may have trouble being approved for a loan or it may be difficult to borrow money at attractive interest rates. Since it’s harming your credit, you may wonder how to remove a charge-off from your credit report.

Do You Still Have to Pay Back a Charge-off?

When a lender charges off a loan, it means they consider it a loss. Just because they’ve written it off their books doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay it back. A charged-off loan can be sold to a collection agency, and the debt collector will continue to try to collect the debt with phone calls, emails, and may even take you to court.

How a Charge-off Can Impact Your Credit

The charge-off may remain on your credit report for seven years from the date of the first payment you missed. Your credit score starts to fall as soon as you miss the first payment, and it falls even further once your loan has been reported to the credit bureau as a charge-off. If it’s sold to a collection agency, that will also show on your credit and cause further damage to your score. When you have a charge-off showing, potential lenders will consider you a high-risk borrower, and they’ll know that at least once you failed to pay back what you owe.

Removing a Charge-off from Your Credit Report

If a charge-off is legitimate, it may not be possible to have it removed from your credit report. However, there are still some things you can do that may help. Start by approaching the lender and asking to have the item removed from your credit report if you pay it in full. This is known as “pay-for-delete.” They may or may not agree to this. When you make the call, find out who the right person is that has the authority to remove the item from your credit report so you can go to them directly.

If the creditor agrees to accept payment to have the item deleted, make sure you get this in writing. If they aren’t willing to do this, you may have no choice but to wait the seven years and make sure the item is removed when it should be. In the meantime, it will have less impact on your credit as time passes as long as you’re paying your other bills as agreed.

What if the Charge-off Isn’t Accurate?

It’s a good idea to make sure that all information on your credit report is accurate. If you find anything that isn’t accurate, including information involving a charge-off, it’s important to file a dispute as soon as possible. Dovly is an AI credit engine that can help you with this process. With our help, 92 percent of our members have seen their credit score improve. You don’t need to worry about continually checking your score because our credit engine will keep running to help monitor your score. Try it risk free with our free membership tier. Get in touch with Dovly today.

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