Credit Advice

Use the simulator. Better yet. Just do it and get your credit back on the right track. 

 if i paid off two credit cards with each balance close to its credit limit of 300 dollars per card how much will my credit go up? My credit score is 648

I'm sure it all depends one the situation, but at the beginning of the year I think my score was in the 520-540 range and I settled 8 delinquent accounts totalling about $11,000 (settled for around $5,000).  I also have an auto loan that was current, never late and about a year old.  Now that everything is paid off my score is around 660-680.   Try to get them to give you a deletion letter in exchange for settling, that helps a lot.  Or just dispute it (it's easy on the transunion ans experian sites) and say that they said they would delete the entry on your account after it was paid.

Amber, I did the exact same thing.  Citi gave me a card with a $2000 limit on it when I was 19, in college and didn't have a job.  I treated it like free money (why would a credit card company give an unemployed student such a high limit.  Did they not see anything bad coming out of that?  oh yeah, it was the economic collapse caused by every jobless college student defaulting on credit cards).  It got so bad that I wouldn't even look at my credit report for about 5 years.  Finally, I decided to get my sh*t together because I'm planning on getting married and buying a house and all of that in the next few years.  So good job growing up and coming to the realization that you can't let this just continue.   About your question - I've never done it, but apparently you should always request a "payment for deletion", and make them send you a confirmation that they will delete it when you pay it off before you send them anything.  And if you can, get them to settle for much less AND get a payment for deletion.  As far as points go, your score won't go up as much or as quickly as you might think if the collection accounts aren't removed from your credit report.  If they are removed, your score should sky rocket.  I had an old collection account that I disputed because it was from a bank that charged my overdraft fees when I didn't overdraft, and out of principle I didn't pay the fees.  I disputed it after it went to collections, and as soon as it came off, my score went up a good 25-35 points for that one account.   After paying off the delinquent/collection accounts, check every credit report (if you can, go to any of the sites that give you all 3 credit scores for like $15 a month, and make sure you can have your score updated at least daily.  some limit you to one update per month) and make sure EVERY SINGLE account is removed.  If not, contact the credit bureau and make sure to ask how long it will be before it is removed.  If it isn't gone after that amount of time, contact them again.  Keep doing that until they are all gone and your score will go way up. Also remember that you will lose credit history because of this.  Hopefully you have been able to get a new credit card and you are not using more than 15% of your limit.  If you haven't, go to capitalone.com and use their pre-approval application to see if you would qualify for one of their cards.  It only does a soft-check to see how things look.  I have a capital one card and it's helping my score a TON.  Plus, I'm building credit history while removing bad accounts. I'm not sure if anyone else does the pre-approval application.  I've checked places like Citi, Discover, and some banks but I haven't found any more.  

Right now i am in major debt over student loans and have even experienced a potential garnish to my wages ( god i was dumb in my 20s) but anyhow since i have been paying off my loans and have gotton them out of collections my score has gone up by 19 points i have also gotton myself on track for my bills all utilities and also any extras im hopeing by the end of 2012 to be able to buy my first new car thanks to this site i can keep an eye on my score and also actually seeing my score improve encourages me to do better im excited so i think as long as you continue to pay in full and on time then you should see a stedy increase to your score and self-esteem