How to Fix Negative Accounts on Your Credit Report

It happens to us all at one point or another. Eventually, for whatever reason, you fall behind on one (but hopefully not more) of your credit accounts, and are hit with a late payment notice for said account. Normally, that’s not a big deal at all – just pay the account as soon as you can, and you’re left with what amounts to a paper cut on an otherwise blemish-free credit report. rnBut if you continue to let the account go unpaid past its due date, you’ll be setting yourself up for a world of hurt from your creditor(s). Miss one or two payments here and there and they’ll barely bat an eyelash; keep ignoring the account due dates, though, and those friendly reminders from your creditors to pay your bill can intensify pretty quickly. And that’s not even taking into account the effect late payments have on your credit report. The longer you let a credit account go without payment, the greater the damage to your credit score will be. Letting accounts go as long as 90+ days without any form of payment at all is one of the easiest and biggest mistakes you can make on your credit profile, leaving you in desperate need of credit repair services. Fortunately, it’s also one of the easiest problems to fix. With that said, here are 5 ways to take care of past due accounts on your credit report: • Pay the balance. I know, mind blowing advice, right? Believe it or not, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel in your quest for credit restoration; just wipe out your past mistakes with tried and true tactics, like actually paying the account. Of course, depending on how long you let the account go without payment, the minimum balance could be a little higher than you had thought, so make sure you have the funds available to take care of at least a sizable chunk of the past due balance before your creditor charges it off. • Settle it. If this particular account is too far gone to get back on track, or if you’d rather pay the account and close it out entirely, you can talk to the creditor about a debt settlement option. Be aware though, that in order to settle an account, you’ll have to have a pretty decent chunk of the money available for the settlement before they’ll agree to it. Just settling an account won’t take care of its negative status on your report though, so you’ll also want to… • Negotiate a Pay for Delete agreement. A Pay for Delete agreement is exactly what it sounds like: You paying the past due balance (or a large portion of it) on the condition it is deleted from your credit report upon payment. When settling a negative account, you should always try and get the creditor to agree to this kind of deal. Some won’t go for it, but it never hurts to ask. • Consider consolidating the account. This isn’t something we normally like to recommend, but if you’re desperate to avoid the account taking on more water than it already has, debt consolidation can help you plug up the leak for a while at least. Of course, the downside of this is that it doesn’t take care of the debt, it just moves it to a new account that now needs to be paid. This type of set-up can turn right around on you, and is only a quick-fix at best. You’d be much better off if you… • Come up with a debt management plan. You may be able to fix the late payment problem, but how do you stop it from becoming a recurring event? If you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck, or you foresee late payments becoming a more frequent problem due to your available finances, a debt management plan can help get you back on track. Get in contact with your creditors and see what type of agreement can be worked out.