Hey guys, I'm new here and I read a couple of posts so far and thought you are all very knowledgeable so here I am :) I am not very credit savvy so hopefully you guys could help me out here with my troubles.
First of all, I was never taught the importance of credit and if your not smart about it, it will cause major problems down the road. Well I requested my CR off the free CR websites and that's when I saw the damage :shock: The collections/charge-offs on there are from times when (and like I said I was very naive about credit) I would do siblings a favor by putting a utility in my name for them when I wasn't living with them, bc well, we're family. These are about three and a half years old and when I went to my siblings to talk about paying them off, turns out I was alone. My cousin told me I should dispute it online which I did but it came back the other day "verified" and some sites say they verify very sloppy and to ask about Method of Verification with the CB. I'm kind of worried now though bc from what I've learned so far is my SOL hasn't expired. Oh and I just learned from it through my CR bc I hadn't prior notice. After I moved none of my mail got forwarded to me. Anyways, I also had a couple of med bills from when I was under 18 that my mom somehow put under my name (can she do that?) and once again I learned that from my CR. I know it's better later than never to fix credit, but how should I go about doing this since I already disputed them online? I also read that it's better to not pay them and let them fall off the CR then to pay them which could do more damage. Please, any advice would be helpful. Thanks for reading :)
If you pay anything on any of them it will start the statute of limitations on them. A company will encourage you to pay a small amount to get the clock ticking again. So unless you can afford to pay it off or settle it out or you can come up with a descent payment plan you are better off letting them alone.
I took care of a few old cards and they stayed on my report and stayed on the negative side of my report, it did me absolutely no good to pay them off, if I would have known this, I would not have paid them off.