Collection accounts are one of the most popular types of negative entries on credit reports, they are created from accounts that are past due and have not been paid on in at least three months.
This is when the creditor will notify one or all three of the credit bureaus (Equifax, Transunion and Experian) that the account is now considered a collection account and it will be reflected on your credit report.
The reason why an account would go into collections is different for each person, it could be due to job loss, death in the family or a host of other reasons but the bottom line is that you need to recover and get your credit rating back on track.
You want to begin by having these accounts deleted from your credit report and there are a couple of ways to do this.
You can settle the account and have the account listed as settled instead of reading as a collection account.
Keep in mind that the damage from the collection has already taken place but you can also try asking the collection company to delete the account as one of the terms of your settlement.
They may or may not agree to your request but by settling on the account it will increase the chances of having it deleted at a later date with the help of a dispute letter.
If the collection account is older than seven years then it needs to be deleted from your credit report.
You can have these types of collections deleted with the help of dispute letters to each of the three main bureaus.
(Equifax, Transunion and Experian)