The Credit Repair Part of Credit Card Debt Relief

Writing debt collector letters

Where your credit is concerned, non-payment of credit card debt is better than bankruptcy.  Bankruptcy is a ten-year deep freeze on your credit, while the effects of late payments and charge-offs ease with time.  As those bad marks age to their seven year limit on your credit report, your credit score will improve, if you are making timely payments on other debts.  This final piece of credit card debt relief, healthy credit, will happen a lot faster without bankruptcy,

To improve your credit score, if you are having difficulty paying your credit card debts, first check it. You will be able to identify the negative listings, as well as any inaccurate information that is negatively impacting your credit report.  You should subscribe to a monthly service ($10-15 month) to track it regularly.

Next be sure to “opt-out” of any sale of your name by the credit reporting agencies to marketers.  This also removes you from the eyes of scam debt collectors and keeps your credit affairs more private.

Then you should pay off any small debts with negative listings – cable, electric, cell phone, etc. in exchange for a delete listing from your credit report.  These typically do not appear on your credit report, so they can be removed by payment.

The listings of the original credit card banks will be difficult to remove.  But, with a properly crafted letter you will be able to remove the negative listings of any junk debt buyers or collection agencies on your report.  You have the right under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to instruct them to stop all collection activities.  A federal court has ruled that negative credit listings constitute collection activity. Hence, their bad marks will come off your credit report with your letter.

Real, doable credit card debt relief is a process of letter writing to debt collectors and collection attorneys. The same holds true for credit repair.

Finding credit card debt relief is a learning experience. Get started with my free Seven Dangers of Not Knowing How to Deal with a Debt Collector.