Charge Offs Creidt Report 7 Years

What are Charge-Offs?

Charge-offs are non-paying loans or credit accounts that have been written off as losses. Merchants report the charge-offs to the credit bureaus.

To recover some costs, merchants typically sell these delinquent accounts to collection agencies. The collection agency pays the merchant a fraction of the value of your debt--usually about half of what you owe.

The collection agency then attempts to collect more than they paid for the account. The merchant no longer has an interest in the debt.

Once you pay a collection agency there is no incentive for the merchant to report your payment to the credit bureau.

If you can pay the entire balance, it is often to your benefit to pay the merchant directly. You can then contact the credit bureau to investigate the negative item. The credit bureau will contact the merchant. With a positive response from the merchant the credit bureau will remove the negative charge-off from your record.

You can often negotiate with a merchant to pay a major portion of your account and have them consider the account paid. Tell the merchant your honest financial situation and that you really want to pay what you can. If the merchant agrees, be sure the have the merchant report your account as "Paid as agreed" to the credit bureaus. Even statements such as "Paid" or "Settled" will go a long way on your credit report.

Even without your effort, charge-offs are typically dropped from credit reports after 6 or 7 years.

How Long Can Negative Information Be Reported?

Your credit report contains a history of your credit activity. Negative items on your credit report will hurt your credit rating for a number of years.

Accurate negative information generally can be reported for seven years, but there are exceptions:

• Bankruptcy information can be reported for 10 years;
• Information reported because of an application for a job with a salary of more than $75,000 has no time limitation;
• Information reported because of an application for more than $150,000 worth of credit or life insurance has no time limitation;
• Information concerning a lawsuit or a judgment against you can be reported for seven years or until the statute of limitations runs out, whichever is longer; and
• Default information concerning U.S. Government insured or guaranteed student loans can be reported for seven years after certain guarantor actions.

Quarterly Credit Report Access Plus Credit Monitoring

For one annual fee you can get access to your credit report, updated 4 times a year. Plus you will get weekly credit monitoring and additional services.

Now iCreditReports.com can provide the following services:

• Weekly Credit Monitoring Emails You will receive weekly email alerts about changes in your credit report. You can easily detect fradulent activity, new credit inquiries, new accounts, late payments, and more.

  Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. The sooner you detect it and take action to fight identity theft, the less damage will be done.

• Quarterly Access to Your Updated Credit Report You'll get a brand new credit report four times a year. Your reports are easy to read and have color graphics with a free interactive guide.

  With up-to-date knowledge you will be better positioned to know how you stand with creditors.

• Credit Monitoring You get updated credit scores four times a year plus personalized analysis showing you how to improve your score.

  This will help you get better lending rates as well as quicker lending approval. This will save you lots of money in the long run.

• Debt Monitoring You'll get an up-to-date analysis of your debt to income ralationship four times a year plus important advice for improving your debt management.

  Your credit score depends, in part, on the amount of debt you have. Improving your debt to income ratio will greatly help improve your credit score.

• Powerful Tolls for Analysis You be able to see graphically how your credit score is improving with colorful charts showing trends in income, debt, credit score, and more.

  The more you know, the better able you are to imporve your situation.

Now you can try this service free for 30 days. Go to iCreditReports.com now to start your free trial.

You'll soon see that this is the most valuable service you've tried on the Internet in a long time.