Our Featured Question & Answer of the Day For Wednesday
Q. How does Debt Settlement hurt my credit?
A: How Debt Settlement affects your credit depends on many factors. The primary factor has to do with how your credit rating is now.
If you have perfect credit, or even slow credit, Debt Settlement will derogatorily affect your credit. If however, you already have accounts that are over 4, 5 or 6 months past due, it may not affect your credit any worse than it already is.
When a revolving account becomes past due, typically over 180 days, the account is “written to profit and loss” by the creditor. This is lender lingo for what is also known as a “charged-off account” or “charge-off”. This profit and loss status or charge off status is reported to the 3 credit bureaus.
It doesn’t matter if the “charge off” occurred prior to enrolling into a settlement program or occurs after enrolling into the program, a charge off is a charge off no matter how you cut it.
The delinquent status and subsequent charge status will be reported on your credit file, in either case.
Creditors report monthly payment history using number – it is a little confusing because one credit bureau uses 1 as current and paid as agreed, while another uses 0 as paid as agree.
Depending on the bureau, the numbers used to report account payment history is commonly 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9. A Charge off is reported on your credit file as a “9” on your credit file.
Over 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180days, charge-offs and written to profit and loss, are all considered derogatory credit remarks and will remain on your credit file for up to 7 years.
If all these next statements are true, then debt settlement may not be the right course for you:
1) Good credit is important to you
2) You have the means to pay off your debt in full by making required monthly minimum payments
3) You can afford the high interest charges associated with paying off unsecured debt.
While debt settlement will adversely affect your credit score, there are many factors that influence your overall credit. In addition to your credit fico score (a number between 350 and 900) another major factor in determining your credit worthiness is your debt to income ratio. If you are maxed out on your credit lines and your debt to income ratio is out of sight, you are most likely not bankable – therefore, in many cases, even having a great credit score is not as valuable as it may seem. Therefore, you must liquidate your debt in order to get your debt to income ratios in line. Either way, you may have credit problems. So the question might be, how do you want to resolve the problem? |
