Debt elimination - 18 collection accounts

[Bloke named Joe]

Hi,

I'm new here and have a question about debt elimination. I have 18 negative items all are with collection agencies. I can pay 16 off asap but I heard that paying them off will make my score plummet since they are old accounts with no activity. About half are charged off the other half are still listed as collection accounts. 16 combined are only about five thousand :o. 10 of those are with NCO (financial services and credit services) the other six are six diff agencies. The other two are almost nine thousand combined. Those two will have to wait awhile. I'm not in a position to do anything about them right now and don't see in the foreseeable future when I will be.

I'm trying to figure out if I should just pay the 16 off asap but I know that charged off paid in full still looks bad. My scores from the three bureaus are pretty shitty Trans- 538 Exp-500 Eq-550. I don't want paying it off to send me further up the proverbial creek, if you will. I also currently am working on a doctoral degree which is extremely time intensive and don't have the time right now to learn everything that I need to know to go to war with these CA's and CRB's to try to negotiate pay for removals. Now that I know how bad my credit is, it's keeping me up at night. I have to do something I just don't know what to do. I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice.

How do I eliminate this debt and salvage my already shitty score? So should I just pay the 16 off now and wait until I finish school to try to negotiate removals? Could I pay the 16 off and then hire someone like Lexington Law to negotiate the removals and incorrect names/addresses etc? Will leaving the other two on be a huge deal if everything else is paid? I really don't want to do consolidation or settlement. I prefer to pay it all and be done with it. Or am I so far gone that I should file ch 7 and be done with it?

Bloke named Joe

[Trish]

I wouldn't say it was so bad that you need to file bk.. I had over 30 derogatory accts and was able to stay above water...

I put a link to the top 10 CROs in your other thread... so you may want to look into that if you are too busy to work on it yourself.
I would advise NOT to just go paying them all off since (like you said) a paid collection or charge off is not going to improve your score. It still looks just as bad...... or worse if it updates an old acct that was aging.
Once you pay them off.....your leverage for negotiating removal is gone.

In your particular case, you should use that money for the CRO and then they can do the paying and negotiating for you.
That's just my 2 cents...

Like I said before, I don't have any first hand experience with CROs but maybe Chane will jump in here and give you some advice or direction regarding this issue.

[Bloke named Joe]

Trish,

Thank you so much for your help. I'm glad that I posted here before paying! I will check out the link you posted on the other question. I really admire all of the DIY work you've done.

If you don't mind me asking... with the 30 derogatory marks you had, were you able to get many of them removed? Were you able to salvage your score? I'm just trying to figure out the best possible outcome for my situation.

[Trish]

It's taken me a while. I started in 2006 with a score of 485.... worked on it for about a year and got my scores up maybe 100 points. I did that by gaining new positive accts (I had a whopping TWO positive TLs) and getting rid of a couple of collections and about 18 medical debts (some I disputed off, some I paid off with the HIPAA method).
I ended up getting sued on a repo and at that point I got burnt out and took a couple of years off. Did nothing regarding credit repair.... only made sure to make on time payments.
Then about a year ago I decided to get aggressive again. Started really hammering the disputes (had a judgment to deal with now too) and working on getting balances down on my cc accts.
Also, keep in mind I have been doing my husbands too...... he was in the same boat scorewise so I've had basically double work.

I now have the one repo charge off due to fall off in April of this year (YAY!) and 2 collection accts.
Scores are in the high 600s. I'm REALLY hoping once the charge off drops I will make it to the 700s. Only other thing that could keep me down is a couple of lates (stupid, stupid) from about a year ago.
The last time I pulled my dh's CRs, one of his was 697.....so close..

So, there is hope... :cool:

[Bloke named Joe]

Trish, I think you may be my new hero . That all sounds really awesome. I looked over some of the HIPAA information on this site ( I've spent a good portion of my night and day researching here) and I think that I may be able to try to do this part myself... maybe. A good deal of my negative accounts are medical accounts.

Do all of the accounts have to be past the statute of limitations for this to work? They are all collection accounts. Also many are with NCO (although some say financial services and some say credit services). The original creditors are listed though, so I shouldn't have any trouble reaching out to them. Would I send one letter to NCO financial services for all the accounts that they have and one to NCO credit services for all the accounts that they have? Or separate letters for each account? Similarly, when I write the original creditors do I send a separate letter for each account or can I include more than one account in the letter?

Final question: re disputing personal information with CRA's. There are tons of incorrect spellings of my name on my report. I have an "ethnic" name that has a lot more letters in it than most American names. It seems that creditors just spelled it whatever way they liked and reported under it. Sometimes they reversed my last name and my first name. Other times they used my middle initial then incorrect spellings for first and last name. There are at least 10 variations of my name on my report, 12 different addresses, 5 different phone numbers and two old employers :confused:. Can I call the CRA's to get them removed? Also, there is a bit of a twist. Last year I legally changed my first name for professional reasons (under the rec' of my graduate advisor that short first name long last name would be easier). I'd really only like my "new" legal name and my correct former name on there. If they removed my former name altogether that would be fine too but I don't imagine that would be possible. All of the other variations need to go. How would I go about that? Would I just call and say -I've never gone by that name, please remove or I've never lived at that address please remove? Would I also call all three to handle it? TransUnion and Equifax wouldn't let me view my report online I had to call to get it mailed. Would that mean that they wont handle business on the phone as well?

I know it's a lot of questions. I apologize I'm just trying to figure this whole thing out. I appreciate your time and advice. Thanks for being so cool about sharing your experience and research. I appreciate your help.

Bloke named Joe

[Trish]

I was going to start answering some of these but then thought they might be better broken up into a couple of threads in the credit repair section....

We are starting to get into specifics.. and just to make it easier to keep up with...... and easier for others find if they have similar questions... I think it would be better if we do that. Do you mind?

I know it took you a while to type all of that up..... so if you would like, I can just cut/paste and move the questions there myself no problem. Just let me know.

[Bloke named Joe]

Trish, sure anything that you can to help would be totally fine with me!

Joe

[Trish]

Ok, I started 2 new threads in the credit repair section in your name.
Will try to get back to answering them shortly.

[Nicklas J]

worry less about your credit score and more about your money