How to Pay a Past Credit-Card Bill
- 1). Get a copy of your credit report to determine who currently owns the account. Depending on the age of the debt, it may have been sold by the original creditor and then sold several times to various debt-collection companies. Get a free copy of your report from the website Annual Credit Report (see Resources), which the nationwide credit bureaus set up to offer free reports as required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. View and print your report from the website's homepage or follow instructions on the page to order by mail or telephone.
- 2). Review the report to find the old debt. Get the name and telephone number of the company reporting the debt. That information will also be listed on the credit report.
- 3). Call the creditor or debt collector. Offer to pay the full amount or offer to settle for less than the full balance. Either option will resolve the problem and end any further collection efforts. However, settlement could have tax implications because the Internal Revenue Service may consider the amount you saved as income, adding to your tax bill. Settle through negotiation. Start unreasonably low by offering to pay 10 percent of the balance, and keep negotiating until you have a deal. Or offer to pay in full if the creditor or debt collector will agree to completely remove the negative entry from your credit report. That process is called pay-for-delete. It is legal, but difficult to come by, because many creditors and debt collectors believe it circumvents the credit-reporting system. Get any agreement in writing before you pay.
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