If you have a charge off it will cause your Credit »”>credit score to be lower. A charge off happens when an account is not paid on for 6 months.

An effective way of erasing a charge off from you credit history is to dispute the listing. This is accomplished by sending a credit repair letter to the credit bureaus.

In your credit repair letter you should explain why the listing is incorrect. For example the account has never been paid late, it’s not your account or information is wrong.

Our credit system is flawed and you are assumed guilty until you can prove otherwise. It is common for incorrect information to show on your credit history.

In response to incorrect information being reported congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This says that any listing that can not be verified must be removed from your credit report by the credit bureau.

It is also common for one charge off account to become many negative listings and ruin your credit score. Let me explain what happens to an account once it is charged off.

The delinquent debt is sold to a collection agency by the original lender. Then the collection agency tries to collect payment from you. If they can not then they will report a new negative listing on your credit report.

Then the collection agency will turn around and sell your debt to another collection agency. This new collection agency will be able to report a negative listing if they are unsuccessful in collecting payment.

This process will continue dependent upon the size of the account. So one account can become many negative listings and ruin your credit score.

If you get multiple negative listings your credit will be in bad shape. It will become extremely difficult to get approval for any new lines of credit.

In sum I encourage you to dispute the listing before you make payment. I would do this because making payment does not guarantee the listing will be removed.