Does paying off collection balances in full or making consistent payments raise your FICO score quicker?

Answer 1

Consistent payments will raise your FICO faster than payoffs. Banks don't like it when you pay off the ballances in full because they are not making any money when you do that. Folks that pay off their credit cards every month are essentially getting a free 30-day float, which does not help their FICO as much as maintaining a balance and making payments on it. The previous answer applies to making payments on a positive, revolving, account like a credit card. It is not a good answer the question posed, namely: Does paying off a collection account or making payments raise your score quicker? Paying off derogatory accounts does nothing to improve your credit score and can, under certain circumstances, lower your score. The reason this happens is that paying off a defaulted account updates the account to NOW. The NOW causes the scoring software to calculate the account as a default that just occurred, instead of something you are trying to "clean up". This hits the score in the History category, which accounts for up to 35% of the total. Once any account goes into default, the entire balance is due and payable in full. If a creditor chooses to take payments, they do so at their own discretion. Payments at this point does nothing to improve the situation, except make the outlay of funds easier to bear. So, neither action improves your score. If you want to raise your credit score, you need to look to other activities.