Question: I was reading an article that said to write a letter to the reporting agency asking for deletion if your account was listed as a charge off but a past due amount is also reported. The article said that this is inaccurate reporting. If this is true what should the letter to the reporting agency state?
Answer: Any inaccurate or erroneous information on your credit report can and should be disputed. Typically an account is charged-off 180 days after the first day no further payments were made on the account. The charge-off allows the creditor to declare your debt as an income loss to the company for tax purposes. But it does not end there.
The creditor will add the charge-off to your credit report and they have every right to continue to attempt to collect on the debt. If the creditor is continuing to collect the debt, a past-due amount can appear on your credit report under the charge-off listing.
However, if the original creditor has sold or transferred the debt to a collection agency or junk debt buyer, they can no longer report the account past due. The balance should be $0.
If there is a collection agency reporting this debt on your credit reports; while both the original creditor and the collection agency can legally remain on your credit report, both cannot report past due balances.
I suggest you read “How to Dispute a Charge-off” to get a little more information on strategies to tackle charge-offs. When disputing any negative account, always request a deletion because a correction of negative information does nothing for your credit score. A correct negative account still remains a negative account and drags down your credit score.
There is no guarantee or law that states a credit bureau must delete inaccurate negative information if they receive new information which corrects the negative listing, but it does not hurt to request a deletion. Sometimes they do delete because they are unable to verify the information as accurate. Good luck to you.
