Collections, Credit, and Mortgages

Basics

Collections are listed on your credit report:

by individual creditor

the details of the collection

By Individual Creditor

Your credit report will list your delinquent payments and collections. This information generally remains on your credit for several years.

Items may be incorrectly listed as being paid late or as collections. You can work to clean these up and correct your credit report. If the collection is a genuine item you will be able to pay it off and the outstanding balance on that credit line will be reduced to zero.

The Details of the Collection

The details of the collection include:

the creditors name
the outstanding balance
how many days it has been late (30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or more)
contact information for the creditor
account number for the debt
Your credit report may list creditors you are unfamiliar with. It may be a name you simply don't recognize. This is usually because the creditor is a collection agency that has purchased your bad debt from a previous creditor. For example, your delinquent cell phone bill may be sold off to a collection agency and the item will then be listed under their name, not the cell phone company's name.

Time and Credit Scores

Your credit score may be hurt the longer a collection remains on your credit report.

Just because a creditor has given up on collecting from you doesn't mean it won't still hurt your credit.

You are much better off taking care of these items as soon as possible.

If a collection is a legitimate item and you pay it off the item will have an outstanding balance of zero (listed as paid off). It will still show up on your credit report, but the process of helping your credit may start with this.

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