How You Can Remove a Charge Off From Your Credit
To remove a charge off from your credit history, you must dispute the negative mark with the credit bureaus.
This is accomplished by mailing a dispute letter to the credit bureaus. A dispute letter must be mailed to each credit bureau that is reporting the negative mark on your credit history.
When you mail a dispute letter, you are challenging the accuracy or validity of the charge off listing. Common reasons to challenge are; the account is paid, information is wrong and not my account, just to name a few reasons.
Credit bureaus are probably not going to respond to your first dispute letter. Often they will write back and request more information about the disputed listing.
This is a result of it only costing credit bureaus money that would otherwise be profit when they conduct an investigation. This is why they are very resistant to the dispute process.
Some people have found it a good idea to hire a credit repair service. These services can frequently get the credit bureaus to grant an investigation, quicker than just a consumer.
It may be that credit bureaus are scared a credit repair firm will file a complaint with the FTC for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I suggest hiring a credit repair firm if you have a number of negative marks on your credit or multiple charge offs.
What is a Charge Off and What Does It Mean
A charge off happens when an account becomes past due and no payment is made for 6 months. A charge off allows a creditor to charge off the account from their books.
It becomes a tax break for a creditor. The creditor then can turn around and sell off the delinquent debt to a collection agency and make a notation on your credit report that your account was charged off.
Then you will start being harassed by bill collectors. If they can not collect the debt they will sell it to another bill collector. The number of people that try and collect payment on this debt is dependent upon the size of the debt.
Each collection agency will have the authority to make a negative mark on your credit report. Thus one charged off account can easily become many negative marks on your credit.
If your charged off account has traveled through a few different collection agencies then you should consider a credit repair firm. If you only have one charge off account then you can do it yourself, just be patient.