Free Credit Report ! In what order should I pay off my credit report items? Oldest first? Lowest amt first? To best raise my score?

Free Credit Report ! In what order should I pay off my credit report items? Oldest first? Lowest amt first? To best raise my score?

Looking for the quickest way to raise my score and improve my credit. What if they won't remove item and only mark as PAID? Will this still help?

The Answer : If I understand your question right, you have a bunch of debts listed as negative items on your report, and you want to fix them?First, understand a couple of things before you even get started. If you don't handle this correctly you are going to not only hurt your score, but you will be spending money that won't help one bit toward fixing it.The credit scoring system gives more attention to accounts with recent activity on them. As time goes by, they are not as important, and the effect on your score goes down a little. So for the first 3-4 years these negative items are killing you, but after that things improve.Also note that when you pay off an old debt, they are only required to show "paid" on your credit report. But all of the information about late payments, charge off's and collection is still there. It is still being listed as a negative item.When you make a payment on an old debt, they will update your credit history as mentioned above, but it now changes the status of your credit item to recent. Even though the debt is paid, this recent negative item will actually hurt your credit scores!Therefore, you must be very carefull how to handle this. Demand that the creditor DELETE the entry from your credit score before you pay them a dime. And get this agreement IN WRITING!That said....when you pay off your debts the only real important order is in recent activities. Pay off the most recent debts (make sure they delete them), then work on the older ones.Note that negative items will automatically be deleted after 7 years, beginning from the date of the delinquency. Therefore, unless you are in a super big hurry to increase your score, don't mess with debts over 6 year old (5 is better). These older debts are not hurting your score to a huge extent.If you are not referring to negative items....then your question is simple. Start by contacting the creditor and negotiate lower interest rates if possible. Then pay off the large interest loans first, putting only minimum payments on the low interest cards. Once the largest is paid, apply more money to the next card.