Good Will Your Way to Removal
One of the least used credit repair tactics is also one of the most effective. Good will letters have helped many a consumer remove negative information that otherwise would have taken years to no longer be reported. Not all good will letters are the same; it will require a certain amount of creativity and patience but the rewards will be worth it in the end.
Goodwill letters, or GW letters, have the potential to be a powerful tool in credit repair. The idea is to write a letter to the creditor or collection agency explaining your circumstances and requesting that they remove negative information from your credit report out of goodwill. The risk is low – the cost of a stamp – but the potential payoff is high – the deletion of adverse information from your credit report. While there is no guarantee that a GW letter will be successful, and there is no specific law or precedent in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) or Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to support it, the odds of success may be better than playing the slots in Vegas.
Goodwill letters can be successful for a number of reasons. You may be able to make the creditor or collection agency feel sorry for you, convince them that you tried to keep up with your bills but were overcome by circumstances, or show them that you have learned your lesson and are ready to be a responsible consumer and debtor going forward. Late payments are often good candidates for GW letters, particularly if the account was previously paid in full or settled. However, it is also possible to have success with GW letters for settled accounts with late payments.
If your GW letter attempt fails on a settled account, you may still have some leverage to negotiate a pay for delete arrangement. Since you still owe money on the settled account, the difference between what you owe and what you paid can be used as leverage in negotiations. It is important not to offer the full difference upfront, as the creditor or collection agency may ask you to pay and promise to remove the negative information at a later date, only to never follow through.
Some people have reported success with GW letters for collections and charge-offs, although it can be more difficult to get large creditors like American Express to budge. Repossessions and foreclosures, bankruptcy, and defaulted student loans are generally not candidates for GW letters.
GW letters are relatively cheap and easy to write once you understand the process. It is helpful to read as many GW letters as you can find, both on this website and others, to get a sense of the art and science of writing them. Be sure to tailor the letter to your specific circumstances and avoid copying a letter verbatim, as there may be details that do not match your situation and it could appear suspicious. It is important to be honest and make your story plausible.
The question often arises of who to send GW letters to. Some people suggest sending them to CEOs and other corporate executives, while others have had success with sending them to working-level employees. Some people have even reported success with using email to send GW letters,
Remove Information with Good Will Letters
One of the quickest ways to see your FICO score drop is to be late on a payment. 30 day late payments will affect your score for roughly two years. Conversely, 120 day late payments will affect your score for the entire seven years that it will report for. One of the ways you can have these removed is through what is known as a good will adjustment. A good will adjustment refers to a company removing or changing information on your credit file without legal justification.
First, try to call the creditor and see if they will make this adjustment over the phone. Unlike collection companies, these creditors usually work to maintain an excellent customer service reputation and they rely on it for future business. If you do not have success with the first level phone support, politely ask for a supervisor and see if you can plead your case to them. The supervisor may inform you of company policy against making these sorts of changes, but they do them all the time! Be convincing and concise with the reason you were late, and try to stress the positive elements of your relationship with them.
If the phone approach proves to be challenging, the next step is to draft a letter and send it through the mail to remove information with good will letters. Since you are not the phone, the company has more time to mull over whether or not to make the adjustment for you. The letter might end up in the hand of someone with more authority to make these kinds of changes.
Good will letters aren’t exclusive to just late payments. You can be creative and write a good will letter for basically any negative information on your file. Please consider that the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not demand that all accounts be reported, only that any account that is reported be reported accurately. Therefore, a company does have legal discretion and permission to remove any account or bit of information it chooses from the credit report.
Additional Steps
If first you don’t succeed, keep trying! If you no longer owe money to the creditor, they will likely tire from wasting time opening and responding to your letters. They have no incentive to keep reporting information if they are no longer waiting for payment. It is often easier for them to stop reporting altogether than to deal with your once a month letters.
Often you will not get any response from the creditor, but next time you pull your account the trade line will be removed.
This article was last updated on December 27, 2022