Paul,  When negotiating with a Collection Agency, I sometimes ask for a Pay-for-delete letter.  Most everyone tells me that they can’t do this as it is against the law….or the original creditor would have to accomplish this.   From reading your columns, it give me encouragement to think that this is possible.  

Is there a such a law, or are the Credit collection agencies incorrect?   If I could quote them a UCC of law indicating otherwise, I would feel more comfortable to hold-out for such a letter.  I can hold out as long as they can, but I would really like to inmpove my Credit scores.  Any insight?    I enjoy your blog and assortment of topics.   

Rick (more…)

My fiance and I are preparing to buy a house soon. Our loan officer says he needs to bring his credit score up 10 points.

We will have the money to pay off most if not all his old debts very soon. My question is where to focus our efforts for a 10 point increase.

He has about 4 misc accounts (all charge offs) that amount to about $1200 total and an auto repo that is for $16,000 (the amount owed when it was repo’d about 2 years ago).

We never recived any paper work on the repo telling us when it was sold or for how much. We live in California so the statue of limitaions in 7 years (I believe).

We do plan on settling up what is owed eventually. I am pretty sure we can get the small debts to pay for delete.

Is it possible to get a pay for delete on the auto repo? If not what is our best action.

Thank you for your help!

~Kelly (more…)

Good Morning Paul,

This is a very informative site. I have been working on my credit since Jan.09.

I just received 2 debt validation responses from collection agencies the first is for a medical bill my son incurred when he was in college the insurance company did not pay now midwest Credit & Collections say I owe what do I do a pay to delete ltr?

The next is from NCO on behalf of Progressive Insurance I cancelled the policy but they say I still owe the remaining 206.46 what should I do?

Thanks,
Karen (more…)

Hi Paul,

My question is regarding Pay for Delete for 2nd Mortgages.  You site seems to have the most information on them that I’ve found. 

Four years ago I decided I’d make some extra money investing in Real Estate. I met an investor at a REI Meeting and he said he would be willing to be my partner. He would find houses at huge discounts, we would use my 800 credit and good income to secure loans and he would sell the houses Rent to Own. You can imagine where the story goes from here.

It seemed to good to be true and it was. We had terrible tenants, tried to do too much to quickly, and we were hit by the housing market crashing. I spent 40k of my own money trying to keep things going but eventually all of the three houses went into foreclosure.

All three homes had 2nd mortgages which didn’t get paid off by the foreclosure sales.

The first was charged off immediately after the foreclosure. The second two are still open on my credit and will be there until 2012.

My question is, should I try and see if the Mortgage Company and Debt Collector would do a Pay for Delete? 

Would it be worth paying to get these of my credit?  My credit is already terrible because of the three foreclosures.  Is it worth spending money to remove the 2nds? 

To date I have not been hit by any judgements from mortgage companies but I am concerned about this because I still have a good job.  Do I wake sleeping giants or do I just live without credit for the next 7 years?   I’d be glad to pay to get as much removed as possible.

Thanks, love your site.
George (more…)

I would like to know that best way to approach a pay for delete.  If I call a collection agency and ask for a pay for delete and they decline then they have my number etc. and can contact me.

Jessica (more…)

I’ve read just about your entire site.  GREAT STUFF!  Finally there is clarification to us non-lawyers on what are our rights as consumers. 

My question is:  can I send a Pay-for-Delete letter to a company that has won a judgement against me? 

I noticed on my credit reports (Public Records section) that the local energy company has filed a judgement against me. 

I would like to to see if I can do a Pay for Delete with them to have this debt settled and removed from my reports. 

Is this possible and does it happen?

Thanks!

Elliot (more…)

I have been calling the collection agencys and asking for a pay for delete letter and ever single one of them says they will not delete. advice?

Carl (more…)

I have a new collections account. I have had to move around so much I was not aware I had not satisfied an old phone bill (about 1 yr old). I am in a hurry to fix this.

If I send a letter offering a pay for delete on paper and enclose a check- and I write on the back of the check- “cashing/depositing this check signifies acceptance of pay for delete” would that be binding?    Thanks!

Kristi (more…)

As we suspected, the pay for delete-inator has been quite a hit here on the Broken Credit Blog.  Many times a valid collection account exists and rather than having the credit score drop by paying the account (No!  Don’t do it!), and having the report stamped with a paid collection account, the consumer would opt to have the account paid if the collection agency agrees to delete the tradeline entirely from the report once paid.  That’s what the pay for delete-inator service aims to do.

Now, this isn’t a service that is offered by the Broken Credit Blog.  We’ve simply hooked the Broken Credit Bloggers up with a pay for delete expert you can talk to and then you can decide what is best for your situation.  Which brings me to my next point – we are getting overloaded with ‘pay for delete’ requests and I need an additional credit repair or debt settlement company to add to my pay for delete-inator list.

If you are a pay for delete expert, then let’s talk!