Credit Score

Your credit score will suffer the most from the collection on the credit card whereas medical mishaps can worked out more readily. I would contact Home Depot and explain the situation and work out a payment arrangement that you can live with. Make sure you get any negotiations in writing before agreeing to anything with the creditors. The will not honor anything that is verbal as I have seen this time and time again. Also make sure they agree to reinstate your credit cared privileges once they have been paid off. In some cases, you can tell them that you have, say $3000, if they will put in writing that they will accept that amount for a full payoff and forgive some of the interest. Have them fax it to you in writing. You may have to present this letter to the credit reporting agencies once it is paid because no one ever really does what they agree to do unless you have the paperwork to back you. Do not lose this paperwork as you will definitely have to send copies at some point to make your story stand up to Transunion, Experian and Equifax. Once you have done this with the credit card company, you can negotiate with the medical creditor as well. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES GIVE THEM ANY MONEY THAT THEY AGREE TO TAKE WITHOUT HAVING THEIR COMMITTMENT IN WRITING! If these collections are over two years old, forget everything I just said becuase once you pay on an old collection, you now make it a new collection and your scores will drop. Go figure! I know, but that is just how it is! Happy negotiating!

You need to do a couple of things:

1) get a copy of your credit report from all three bureaus.  There is not "one" credit score - you need to address all three.

2) Follow the appeals process to see if you can at a minimum have your statement of explanation included in the file on this account.  You cannot have accurate information removed, but at least you can state your case.

3) check your other credit score factors to see if you can improve them to help offset the damage from the collection account.  Here is an article that will outline what the score formula looks at: http://ratenerd.com/credit-score-secret-sauce-how-credit-bureaus-calculate-your-credit-score-1193

4) if all else fails, have an attorney or reputable credit repair company write letters on your behalf to see if they can get the information removed.

Good Luck!

I must agree with RateNerd 100%.

Douglas,

For credit repair I strongly recommend Leexington Law, you can find them here http://www.lexingtonlaw.com/