If you have a charge off it will cause your credit score to be lower. A charge off happens when an account is not paid on for 6 months.

To delete charge offs from your credit history you have to dispute the charge off. You can do this by sending a credit repair letter to the credit bureaus.

In your credit repair letter tell them why the listing should be removed from your credit report. Common reasons are the: the account has been paid, information is wrong, or it’s not your account.

The way our credit system works is you are guilty until you prove your innocence. What I mean is the incorrect information is true until you prove otherwise.

Congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act in response to complaints of inaccurate information being reported by the credit bureaus. This legislation simply says that if a listing can not be verified then the credit bureau must remove it from your credit report.

It is not un-common for one charged off account to result in many negative listings and a ruined credit report. Let me show you the process of what happens to a charged off account.

The charged off debt will be sold to a collection agency by the lender. That collection agency will make efforts to recover payment. If they are unable to then the collection agency makes a new negative listing on your credit report.

The collection agency will then sell your account to another collection agency. The new agency will also try and collect and if unable they will report yet another new negative listing.

This process will continue dependent upon the size of the account. So one account can become many negative listings and ruin your credit score.

If you have many negative listings it will cause your score to go way down. It will also be difficult to get approved for new lines of credit.

This is good to know before you pay an outstanding bill because payment does not mean that the listings will be removed. Instead I would recommend disputing the charge off before you take any step to repay the debt.