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Comment by mcntsh | Hacker News Reader

It went to collections. That stays on your credit for 3-5 years.

Incorrect. Pay it off in full. They will report that to the credit folks and it will be removed.

This is patently false. They will remove it if they are feeling particularly jolly when you call and ask. But they are under no obligation to do so and they have denied this action to me before.

I’ve been in this situation and you can make repayment contingent upon deleting the negative remarks. As in you send me a letter certifying you’ll delete the remark, and I will remit payment.

If they refuse then you can just refuse to pay until they relent. Their only alternative is to take you to court or sell to the next collection agency down the line. Creditors and collection agencies won’t take that action except as an absolute last resort.

One of the challenges with this is that technically the TOS between a creditor and the CRA forbids the practice of "pay for delete". So you may get lucky, but oftentimes, you may not.

They do have to mark it as paid at least under the FCRA if you are in the US.

Rephrase: my credit was a disaster in my 20's. I paid off dozens of collections accounts in my 30s. All of them were removed.

My personal experience has been that it is 100% true that, if paid in full, the item is removed.

Better?

This is incorrect. They do not have to remove it. They can, if you ask nice, but they do not have to.

That's actually not true. If you pay the collection agency, the derogatory mark gets removed within weeks. You also typically only need to pay half the amount. If they try to get you to pay the whole thing, just tell them you're using your tax refund to pay off debts, but you only have $X left, where X is half the amount owed.

That’s not my experience. The only derogatory items on my credit report are medical debts I have long since paid off.

You have the legal right and ability to remove any mark if you've paid it off. Both of the agencies have online options for removal requests.

https://www.experian.com/disputes/main.html

https://www.transunion.com/credit-disputes/dispute-your-cred...

Other creditors are worried you would move abroad and forget to pay them for years.

For sure it's a valid concern and warrants a mark on my record probably but a 30 dollar bill after 10+ years of pristine activity basically removing my ability to take out a loan is a little unfair.

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