Question: I recently applied for a home loan and was denied. I was told it was due to recent delinquent activity of an account showing up in my credit report (as recently as this month). When I reviewed my credit report, I found a Capital One account that has been charged off since Jan of 2008, but the problem is that Capital One reports the account as a new charge off every month.
So my credit reports account history reads like this; charged off as of Jan 2012, Dec 2011, Nov 2011, Oct 2011…….well you get the picture. Is this a legal practice? Is this ground for a dispute?
Answer: Welcome to the world of Crapital One credit reporting. An original creditor can update a charge-off account monthly as long as it is accurate information being reported. It is perfectly legal. Most original creditors cease updating charge-off accounts at some time; however, Capital One does not.
Any inaccurate credit information on your credit report can be disputed. If the monthly updating is inaccurate you should dispute it. 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 report the debt. If Capital One sold the account to a collection agency, they would be required to report the balance as zero.
What cannot change is the date the account is due to drop off your credit report. No matter how often Capital One updates the account, 7.5 years after the date of first delinquency (2008), this account must be removed from your credit report.
Of course this does not solve your dilemma. If you are in the market to purchase a home, even if you are approved, any lender will require a charge-off be paid before or at the closing of the loan.
Capital One is not going away with a simple dispute. If by chance they do, they will come back. The best course of action would be to settle the debt. Until you pay the debt, the tradeline will be updated monthly.
You can request a pay for deletion but they are not known for cooperating. You may be able to negotiate a payment plan or settle the debt and request the status be updated to “Paid” or “Settled.”
This would at least give you an opportunity to stop Capital One’s monthly reporting which is causing your credit report to reflect recent negative activity on a monthly basis.
The last thing you probably want to do is deal with Capital One but look at this way…Homeowner vs. Charge-Off. Homeownership is an investment and much more rewarding.
Take a look at Strategies to Dispute Chase Credit Card Charge-Off to get an idea of how to settle this charge-off and move on. If not, Capital One will continue updating the delinquency date as well as the balance every month so that it appears as a new delinquency.
Once the debt is paid, it will have less negative effect on your credit score and eventually it will not matter at all. The best of luck to you.