What A Charge Off Means To Your Credit Report and Credit Score

Bad credit is no fun. When you check your credit report and find derogatory entries on your credit report listed as "charged off," you may wonder what this term means, and if you even have to repay these debts since the original creditor is no longer trying to collect from you.

Second question first: Yes, you still owe the debt.

First question: A charge off refers to a particular debt that a creditor has determined to be uncollectable, and has therefore written off the books. Generally this debt ultimately gets sold to a collection agency. They may buy the debt for pennies on the dollar and use every dirty trick in the book to shame you into paying up.

If a creditor hasn't received the payment you owe him after three months, the account is frequently charged off and sold. But sometimes the length of time taken before an account is charged off extends for much longer than three months, especially when it comes to medical debt.

And, as stated earlier, just because your credit report shows this debt as 'charged off' that fact does not relieve you of the legal responsibility to repay what you owe. Until the statue of limitations has run its course in the state you live in (sometimes in as little as five years), you will still be legally indebted to repay this debt.

This is why collection agencies are so quick to try and get you to confirm you owe the debt or get you to make even a token payment, as this reset the clock on your debt and the statute of limitations gets extended. You can learn more vital tips on how to fight collection agents trying to reage your debts.

Also, you may want to be aware of and avoid the 7 biggest lies told by collection agencies.

Status of Piggybacking For A Higher Credit Score

Piggybacking To Raise Your Credit Score -- Is It Still Legal?

We're updating this previous information we posted, about how the practice of "piggybacking" just might still be a way to improve a negative credit score:

FICO (Fair Isaac Corp.), which developed the widely-used FICO® credit scoring model, warned back in 2007 that it would end credit score piggybacking due to alleged abuses. The new scoring model labeled "FICO® 08" would put a stop to alleged abuses to the credit scoring system.

However, due to outcries from critics, the firm stepped back from the decision. Experts note that such a move would violate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

Some firms are still promoting and popularizing this method to boost a bad credit score.

"Piggybacking credit" refers to the practice of someone with a good credit score "renting out" their good score to someone else. Elsewhere, perhaps a parent or a spouse does the same thing to help a family member get better credit. Therefore, consumers who had no credit and people suffering from bad credit got a "credit boost" simply by being added to the accounts of credit cardholders who had legitimate good credit themselves. In effect they got to ride along 'piggyback' on the good credit account holder's account.

The website Boostmyscore.net details how this practice may still improve your credit score, though probably for a hefty price. (Note: we have NO affiliate relationship with this website; we merely link to it to give you an idea of the services available from them.)

More information on how an authorized user can get better credit is found in the forums here: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums

We're not certain it's worth the cost to piggyback onto someone else's credit, and it's definitely not ethical to do so if you're trying to hide poor credit from a lender, or worse, trying to scam the system in taking out a loan and destroying someone else's credit score in the process.

Bottomline, our opinion remains the same: Restoring good credit is a task you can do yourself, by yourself, without having to pay somebody else to do it for you.