It is not easy to remove collections from your credit report, but it can be done. When you no longer pay on an outstanding bill, the company will wait for a payment each month and still send statements. Usually after six months, the company will then send the account to a collection agency. This is the last chance that a company has to receive the money owed to them. Once an account has gone to collections, the creditor has already tried to make some kind of contact for payment, either by phone or mail. Some companies have their own collections department and other companies have to find collection companies to take on collections accounts.

To be able to remove something from collections, you have to dispute it. This requires you to send in a dispute letter about the account you are reporting. There is more than one credit bureau, so you must send in the same dispute letter to each bureau. The dispute letter needs to state the account you are disputing and the reason why.

Once the credit bureaus receive your dispute letter an investigation will be opened. The bureau will then get in touch with the company who reported the information. By the bureau contacting the company, this will inform the company you are challenging the report. The bureau will want to make sure the report and information given by the company is valid.

If the debit is old and cannot be found by the company, it will be very likely that the collection account will be dropped and removed from your credit report. If the company can verify the debt and entry, then the debt will more than like have to be paid off or a negotiation of payment will be made. Once the debt is paid off, it will not automatically be removed from your credit and you will need to negotiate for the removal.

Here are three steps to removing collections from your credit report:
1. Dispute charges for collection- send in a dispute letter and have an investigation started
2. Pay off the collection amount-it may be easier to go ahead and pay it off
3. Wait the time period for the collection to drop off of your credit-collections must be removed seven years after reported