If you are 30 days late on a payment, your creditor may report the debt as late with the credit reporting agencies. This is also called a delinquency. Delinquencies are reported as 30, 60, and 90 days past due, with each stage causing more damage to your credit.

If your debt is sent to a debt collector, they must contact you first. 

• This usually happens through a validation notice.
• After they contact you, the debt can be reported as in collections.

You have 30 days to dispute the debt. If you dispute it, the debt collector must tell the credit reporting agencies that the debt is disputed.

👉 Learn how past-due debt impacts your credit score.

How debts get updated

If you pay or settle a delinquent debt, the debt collector must update the account status. 

It will show as:

• Paid in full or
• Settled for less

Paid in full debt could be seen as better by future lenders as better than settled for less. 

About “pay-to-delete”

Pay-to-delete is when you make a deal with a debt collector to remove a debt from your credit report if you pay it.

People try this to improve their credit score. But newer credit scoring models already ignore paid delinquent debts. So, pay-to-delete may not raise your score much.

Pay-to-delete may also not be legal. The Fair Credit Reporting Act says that debt collectors must report accurate information. Deleting a debt that was correctly reported may go against this law.