7 Year Thing?
As a college student, I bought a used car with warranty that broke soon after purchase. The warranty company (UNITED AUTO CARE-BEWARE!) didn't honor my warranty. I didnt know much about my options, but I refused to pay for something that I no longer had. As a result my credit was shot and I gave up on everything else. Long story short, I got a bunch of debts in collection. I have since paid off a few, but the major biggie is still that car loan. I'm still stubborn about wanting to pay for it.
I dont quite understand how the 7 year thing works. They say that after 7 years things will stop being reported. Dose that mean they'll be taken off? What is the whole thing with that? I'm almost at the 7 year mark, and ready to get back on track, especially now that I want to get into real estate.
Anyone know about the 7 year thing?
To my knowledge negative accounts are deleted after 7 years and normally on the first day of that particular month. If I were you I would call the credit reporting agencies to verify. Ask specifically about the deletion date of the account. However, since you are so close to deletion date be careful not to get the people who reported the account involved - they may attempt to prolong it on your report.
It will stop being reported 7 years after the LAST activity from that account. That means if you make a payment 6yrs 11months into the account, it will be on for another 7 yrs. Likewise if the company is still reporting it as deliquent or in collections.
Roger
Raj is right, it has to be "quiet" for 7 years. The way you would stop it from being quiet would be to make a payment, the way the creditor would do so would be to sue.
There is a lot of room for negotiating in between, so if you dangled some dollars (say, not much more than about 30% of the original debt), you might be able to pay it off *and* get it cleared completely off the credit reports (which collection agencies hate to do, but it *is* within their power, although perhaps not within their agreements with the credit reporting agencies--you'd be making them fudge, but they sure fudge when they're talking to you!).
7 years is correct. You can fight it off by challenging yourself (once a month), or have a credit repair service do it for you, like www.creditline.org
Well, anyone I made a payment to...I paid off. I'm assuming that wont affect other creditors?