Credit Myth 1 – Pay Collections

The following guest blog is written by Teressa McIntosh with HOPE Credit Service.

Paying collection accounts is usually the first place people start when deciding to try to fix a damaged credit report. However, the idea that paying off a collection account will boost a consumer’s credit scores is, unfortunately, very wrong. The FICO credit scoring model was built to help lenders predict the likelihood of a borrower going 90+ days past due on a loan within the next 2 years. If a borrower is likely to go 90+ days delinquent on an account within the next 2 years then a lender will probably consider the borrower to be a bad credit risk.

When a consumer pays off an outstanding

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