Open Negotiations With Your Creditor

• Contact the creditor listing the charged-off account on your credit report. Send a letter or email message to express your desire to satisfy the debt and have the derogatory information regarding the account amended or removed from your credit report. Seek contact with both the collection agency that took over the account before the charge-off as well as the original creditor. Keep all correspondence from all entities involved with settling the debt.
  
  

Negotiate Terms

• Inquire as to the acceptable repayment amount that would compel the creditor to change the status of your debt on your credit report. Oftentimes, the creditor will settle for a sum less than the original debt, though they are not obligated to do so. Find out if the amount necessary to settle the debt would be different if you chose to pay one lump sum versus a payment plan of multiple installments.
  
  

Get Final Resolution Agreement in Writing

• Once you have agreed upon the terms of the repayment, get them in writing. The correspondence from the creditor should include the total amount to be repaid, the terms of the repayment schedule and the intention of the creditor once the final payment is made. A significant ingredient to the final resolution is how the company will alter the listing of the debt on your credit report. Your best outcome would be that the company agrees to remove all information about the debt from your credit report. Almost as fortuitous would be an amendment to the account as "paid as agreed." Paid as agreed shows that while you were delinquent, you paid the debt and followed the payment arrangement in doing so. Having the debt removed from your credit report is best in that it removes even the fact that you had a charged-off account.
  
  

Follow Through With Repayment Arrangement

• This is your chance to rewrite history, so to speak. If you are fortunate enough to have opened negotiations, successfully agreed to a repayment schedule that you can afford and secured a final resolution from your creditor to amend your credit report, capitalize on the opportunity by meeting all of the requirements of the agreement. Place repaying the debt among the highest priority obligations you have and faithfully pay the debt until resolved. The chances that you will be able to get another opportunity to affect the charge-off account is less likely.