Originally Posted by
Dave Cutter
But adding new debts to a history of bad debts will NOT improve a credit score.
It depends on what type and how many bad accounts he currently has, which you don't know. And paying off bad accounts as you suggested isn't always a wise thing to do. From a moral standpoint, yes, but not from a FICO standpoint. If someone owed $1000 on a credit card and they haven't paid on it for two years, then they can wait 5 years for it to fall off, or pay it off which starts the 7 year countdown back up. And it won't raise his score in between. If you want to pay it off and have it immediately removed from your credit history you need to first mail a pay for delete letter to the company. If they don't agree then you don't freaking pay it. If the OP followed your advise, he would just keep money in a savings account, pay old debts and wait out 7 years for his scores to go up.
I went from having a FICO in the mid 500's to getting a mortgage for a brand new house and new truck 6 months later in the middle of the credit crunch in '09. Not 1980.