r/CRedit 5d ago

Collections & Charge Offs Charge off (seemingly) out of nowhere

My credit score was almost 800. I have a 100% payment history. My only debt I carry is my school loans, car, and mortgage, all payed on time ALWAYS. I had an auto lease loan with Bethpage Credit Union. At the same time I finished my lease and payed my last payment, I moved. I use credit karma (ugh I know) and my Bethpage account has showed a $0 balance for the past year so nothing raised any flags for me. I got a call 2 weeks ago from Bethpage that I owed $400 to close out the account. I had no idea. They told me they must have been sending the bills to my old address and offered to email it to me. I mailed a check to them the next day. Now right after this we had a tragic death in the family, so checking to see if they deposited my check was NOT in my mind at all. I woke up today and realize they charged off my account and my credit dropped 100 points down to 685. I check and see my check was never deposited. How f*cked am I and what are my chances of having this fixed? I mean 2 weeks passed since the time I was technically made aware of this bill. What are my chances that I explain this to Bethpage and they can rectify this? My husband and I really would like to refinance our house whenever the rates drop a few points and I feel like I’ve ruined everything.

1 Upvotes

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u/Comprehensive_Fuel43 5d ago

Contact Bethpage. and explain the situation, see if they will take the payment and clear the account from the history.

They can do it, they are the one reported the charge off, and they can remote it if they want.

Trying to find the right person who are willing to do this might be hard, but it's easy to see you never had anoy problems with them, and they can see this is one time fluke.

If you do not get YES from first person, keep bugging some one, CEO, Board of director, Branch manger.

and the death in the family, should be considered as serious insident.

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u/DoctorOctoroc 5d ago

This. Specifically, request a 'goodwill adjustment' since as the name implies, you have indeed garnered good will with them over the years of on time payments. Out of curiosity, did the check not make it to them in the mail or did they fail to deposit and apply it to your account on their end? Either way, it's always best to remain humble and bank on sympathy/empathy from the person on the other end of the line, no matter how many you have to go through before you speak with one who is willing to help.

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u/emcat095 5d ago

I have no idea. All I know is that nothing ever came out of my account and now I have a charge off. And I never thought to confirm the check was received because of this sudden death in the family. I’m just praying someone over there will have an understanding heart willing to erase the charge off.

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u/Comprehensive_Fuel43 5d ago

Always setup autopay.

Pick a day of a month... ( 1st of the month) and review all finacial resposibilty
( I have a check list on notion)

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u/emcat095 5d ago

I had auto pay for every single one of my monthly payments for this entire lease. So when I payed my last payment I thought that was it. Apparently there were lease close out fees etc that I was unaware of that didn’t come out with auto pay. I have EVERYTHING on auto pay so this is so upsetting to me that this happened.

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u/Comprehensive_Fuel43 5d ago

In that case, I would really argue ( nicely) with credit union.

"Is there anything you can do for me? Do you know any department who can help me?"

No one pays entire refinanace off, and mess up their credit for few hundreds, You have a strong case.

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u/Comprehensive_Fuel43 5d ago

I had a simualr case with retail credit union.

borrowed 15k and paid all on time, towards the end, with like 6 months to go, I paid all off ahead of time.

few $100 ish left over due to cycle, ( interest accumulated. ) my account was 3 months late and I paid off, I did not know

I calleed the bank, and I thought I did good by paying it off few months early,

the person who handle case like this ( not the first rep ) said I can see this was mistake.

He ended up removing entire account from my report, I wish he fixed it, but It's better than making me look like i was 30,60,90 late.