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Is there a way to remove negitive items from your credit before 7 years. I had two medical bills that were sent to collectins i paid them right away for a total of 150.00 dollars. That was 5 years ago; I was wondering if there were any ways to get the collection company to take it off earlier than 7 years???
Sorry to Say
In short, no. If you hadn't already paid them in full, you could send a letter which is commonly called "pay for delete" to the collection agency. For a future reference (though lets hope you never need to) Before you pay a dime send a letter which states you are willing to pay _$ in return the collection agency deletes any and all info from them on your credit report(s) This includes but not limited to, the negative account, inquiries, ect... I usually recommend your first offer to be 50% of the total account balance. Usually, in most cases, collection agencies buys bad debt at about 2.9 cents on the dollar, so 50% isn't a bad start and you can always bump up the dollar amount from that point, if they decline your first offer. I also check out the SEC - Filings for that particular agency and quote to them the exact amount they paid for the bad debt, provided the collection agency is a publicly traded company. This isn't always the case, but remember knowledge is power. Usually when they know you have educated yourself in this subject they are less likely to try their tactics. Never believe or take their word that they "simply can't delete info" on your account. Lastly, you can always give it a shot and contact them and tell them you were under the impression this info would be deleted off your account, once paid. I hate to suggest fibbing, but if you tell them you are now trying to buy a house or car, they may take it as their good deed to help. They probably will not concur with you and say sorry about your luck but once in a while you get someone who has the heart to help you out. Final point be persistent, call often, don't give up simply because you didn't get things worked out as you wanted on your first try. On a side note, if the account(s) are 5 years old, they aren't impacting your score like they have been in the past. With out knowing your specific scenerio I would guess your score would only bounce a few points if they were deleted. So worse case scenerio hang in there for 2 more years. Hope this helps and sorry I couldn't deliver better news to you. PS if you would like a standerd "pay for delete" letter - give me a heads up, I have one that you would just need to fill in the blanks and send in.