Shayne Sherman

Charge offs are bad debts that your creditor has disposed of. They will appear on your credit report with the words “Charge Off” written at the beginning of the file. The amount of the debt may be zero even though you know that you still owe a balance or there may be a dollar amount attached. If you have charge offs on your credit file, you should know that they can be tricky to deal with. Since it is almost impossible to have a charge off removed, you should focus on lessening the impact that your charge off account has on your credit score.

If your charge off has a dollar amount attached to it, the first thing you need to do to improve your credit score is to get it down to a zero balance. This does not mean that you have to pay the full amount listed in your credit report. In many cases, the creditor will settle your account for pennies on the dollar owed. Offer to pay anywhere from 35 to 50 percent of the balance owed in exchange for your reported balance being brought down to zero. Your charge off will not be removed. However, a charge off account with a zero balance only does as much damage to your credit as a charge off account that has been paid in full. So, never pay 100% of your debt on a charge off.

You should also take into account the amount of time that the charge off has been on your credit file. Entries on your credit file that are more than four years old do not affect your credit score as much as more recent entries. If you wish to pay off a charge off account that is more than four years old, pay as little as you possibly can to settle it. In most states, creditors cannot sue you for delinquencies that are older than four years. So, their hands are tied. They should be more than willing to offer you a sweet settlement.

Keep in mind that you can damage your credit score by paying off an old charge off account. As mentioned before, new entries carry more weight than old entries. If you make a payment or set up new payment arrangements on a new account, the date of the account is updated to reflect the new contract. This means that you could lose credit score points because the account will appear as if it is a new account. The file will also remain on your credit file for seven years from the updated date. So, weigh your options carefully before you decide to pay off an old account.

Nearly everyone, at some point in life, has had an occasional late payment on a credit card or a hospital bill that has ended up with a collection agency. Those kinds of credit issues affect you; late payments on credit cards often result in higher interest rates and late fees; collection agencies are not nearly as understanding as hospital financial service staff about payment arrangements. Nothing, however, affects your credit as negatively as bankruptcy, which is why the minute your bankruptcy is discharged, your first thought should turn to bankruptcy credit repair.

Bankruptcy credit repair is not an overnight solution to repairing your credit report. In fact, bankruptcy will remain on your credit report for up to ten years, so it will continue to affect you as you move through life. However, many things you can do to make the bankruptcy credit repair process go more smoothly.

Once of the first things you should do after bankruptcy is to obtain a "secured" credit card. A secured credit card works like a regular credit card, in that it reports to your credit report, however, it is secured by a deposit. You are basically charging against your own prepaid money in order to rebuild your credit rating. Rebuilding your credit is the first and most important step in bankruptcy credit repair.

Department stores like Sears and Wal-Mart have less stringent credit requirements, so a good second step in the bankruptcy repair process is to apply for a credit card from a department store or retail outlet. The idea is not to max out another credit card and get yourself in more credit debt trouble, but to use the card regularly, wait for the charge to be billed to you, then pay the debt. It is critical that you pay more than the minimum amount and make the payment before the due date. Paying more than the minimum and building a track record of on-time payments will provide the best bankruptcy credit repair possible.

Do not be fooled by companies who offer to repair your credit. takes time; if an offer sounds too good to be true it most likely is too good to be true. Don't be fooled into committing to a long-term payment plan for something you can do for yourself. If you do need credit repair help, seek the counsel of a reputable company such as Lexington Law Firm. They help people to repair their credit after bankruptcy all the time. They even raised my credit scores 180 points in two months!

Afni Bloom is actually Anderson Financial Network. If you have seen them on your credit reports then you have probably witnessed some of the shadiest collection practices ever used. They are a junk debt buyer, or a collection agency that specializes in buying older written off debts in bulk. They buy these debts from original creditors for pennies on the dollar. They then use whatever means necessary to try and extort money from the unlucky sole that used to owe money.

Afni Bloom or Anderson Financial Network's Bloomington division has numerous complaints registered against them through the better business bureau. The majority of the cases seem to regard utility or phone bills which AFNI Bloom tries to collect on that are actually way past the statute of limitations for a debt. Once a bill becomes so old it is no longer legally enforceable. These "to old to collect" debts are then bought up by AFNI on the cheap. Once they get a hold of them they proceed in trying to collect on the debts by reporting new collection accounts on your credit reports. Re-aging accounts is against the FDCPA, every violation is a $10,000 offense.

Your best defense against AFNI Bloom is to stick to your guns and keep track of all your paperwork that you might have to use at your disposal. Do not pay off a debt if you know that it is older than your states statute of limitations. Refuse to deal with collection agencies, if you feel like you owe the debt and would like to pay it then contact the original creditor first. If AFNI bloom is attacking your credit reports then you would best be served in hiring a credit repair lawyer. A credit repair lawyer well versed in the Fair Debt Collections Procedures Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act will be able to stick it to AFNI Bloom and get the debts removed.

If you are dealing with AFNI Bloom, I strongly suggest hiring a company such as Lexington Law Firm to handle your credit repair. They have been extremely successful in removing junk debt buyers such as AFNI Bloom, NCO financial and a ton of other collection agencies from thousands of their clients credit reports every year.

Learning how to repair a bad credit score is not hard. It is one of the best gifts that you could possibly do for yourself as the impact that repairing a bad credit score can bring to your finances is almost unbelievable. In this day and age our credit and credit scores impact so much that we do that it is a major crutch having to deal with a bad credit score. The good news is that with the right information and a little motivation, you too can repair bad credit scores.

More than likely your bad credit score will be caused either because of outstanding debt that you owe or because of past obligations that you did not take care of. I will explain a little here about how current outstanding debts can affect your credit scores, but the main focus of my article today will be in helping to clear a bad credit score due to past obligations that are blemishes to your credit scores.

Thirty percent of your credit scores are based off of your current debt to limit ratio on revolving credit. So, for example, if you have a $1,000 limit visa card and you owe $950 dollars on it, you have 95% of your debt/credit ratio used. There are a few things that affect this part of your credit scores. One is per account and the other is overall debt/credit ratio. It is best to keep your accounts under 30% of your available limit to maximize your credit scores.

Now the main focus of this article is to help to repair a bad credit score due to older obligations that might have gone to collections, were charged off, or paid late. Most negative credit will stay on your credit reports for seven years before they will go away. It doesn’t matter if you paid thirty years on time and only paid once late…that late payment is keeping your credit scores down from their maximum potential. Now I want to point out that credit repair is entirely legal despite what some people will tell you. The fact of the matter is, you have a right to ensure that everything on your credit report is 100% accurate. If you have reason to believe that something might not be 100% accurate or, if you just are not sure of the item in general, you have the right to request that the credit bureaus investigate the validity and accuracy of the item(s) in question.

That is how and why credit repair works. Once you ask them to investigate they have a certain time period to contact the creditor in question and to validate the item you asked them to. If anyone in the process slips up or doesn't respond then the item must be removed or corrected.

Lastly, I will point out that you certainly can attempt to repair bad credit scores yourself, but I personally recommend hiring a professional credit repair law firm to handle your credit repair. They charge roughly $40 per month to legally handle your disputes to repair bad credit score as quickly and accurately as possible. I recommend Lexington Law Firm as they handle more credit repair than any other company.

Anderson Financial Network or AFNI for short is a collection company. They collect for numerous companies, but one of their largest clients is Verizon. Amongst other things, AFNI have been known to try to collect on debts that are too old to legally collect on.

Once a collection runs through its statute of limitations, the debt can no longer legally be collected on. AFNI is classified as a junk debt buyer. A Junk debt buyer buys portfolios of old, sometimes past statute of limitations, debts for pennies on the dollar. Once they own these debts they practice less than desirable means to try and collect on them. They will send threatening letters, place new collections on your credit reports and call harassing you. They have even been known to call your relatives or your workplace to try and collect the debts. If AFNI is harassing you please make yourself familiar with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Perhaps the best weapon you can have for your defense would be the debt validation letter. You must demand that the collection agency validates, or proves the validity of the debt. If they cannot provide you with any sort of proof such as a contact then they must stop trying to collect. Usually, they will try to just send you a "statement" or even an itemized printout!

Consumers are urged to demand validation of all debts from a bottom feeder because the majority of them have nothing to back up their claims. By demanding debt validation, you are utilizing your rights under the FDCPA to make the collection agency prove that they own your debt. It's not enough for them to send you an itemized statement or printout of the debt. Section 809 of the FDCPA specifically talks about debt validation and your rights.

If AFNI collection agency is reporting on your credit reports I suggest contacting Lexington Law Firm. They have helped over 500,000 clients remove negative items from their credit reports.