This month’s tip of the month reveals the secret reason you should NEVER PAY COLLECTIONS!
If you have a stubborn collection account that just won't go away with disputing tactics, paying it off is NOT the smart way to go.
Most people say you have to pay to make it go away.
I understand why they’d think that, but the exact opposite is true.
Even though it seems logical that paying off an old collection account would only help a credit score, the reality is, it does more damage than good.
See, the older the account is, the less of a negative impact it has on someone’s credit.
So, when you pay or settle an old collection account, it doesn’t just go away, it restarts the time clock…
Then boom!
Not only does it look like a recently paid collection, but it also renews the date of the last activity and can end up really hurting the score for a long, long time.
That’s why debt collectors do their best to convince you that it’s a positive solution because they know that’s the best way to get you to pay it!
But they're just in it for the money.
They purchased the debt for pennies on the dollar and anything they collect above that is a win for them.
Now, if you own your own credit repair business, you may have already run into clients that are trying to get a home loan or use their credit for something and the lender will require any collection accounts to be zeroed out as a condition of the loan.
You may have also come across clients that just want the harassment to end and are eager to get everything squared away.
When this happens, instead of just settling the account or paying it in full, do this instead...
Log into your Credit Repair Cloud Account and either go to your letter library or use the letter finder feature to search for the “Pay Per Delete” letter.
Ask your client what they are willing to pay and what they are able to afford to put this behind them once and for all.
Then fill in the blanks and send out your letter.
This letter offers either a percentage of, or the full amount in exchange for guaranteeing an account will be deleted entirely.
Once it’s sent, you may have some back and forth negotiations but if you are able to come to an agreement…
MAKE SURE you get a signed agreement to cover your bases.
Once you have a signed copy and your client pays the debt collector, they should delete it right away.
If not, you can always use the agreement as proof and the bureaus will do it for you.
At the end of the day, NEVER SIMPLY PAY COLLECTIONS!
Instead, remove the account in order to really improve the credit score.
And if you want to use our proven and effective methods we teach in our Basic Disputing Course for verification, disputing accounts, sending warnings, being persistent with reinvestigations, doing interventions, filing complaints, demanding validation, and a ton of other real strategies that actually get you results...
For a limited time, I’m offering that certification course for FREE inside our 14-day Credit Hero Challenge, where I walk you by the hand as you launch your very own credit repair business in just a couple of weeks AND for less than it costs to bring your family to McDonald’s for dinner.
To join the challenge and get the Basic Disputing certification course for free, go to CreditHeroChallenge.com.