Goodwill Letters

I first heard about “goodwill letters” a few months ago. The idea intrigued me! I thought I might be able to use it to remove a nearly-7-year-old ding on my credit report. As it turned out, the ding was actually OLDER than 7 years. Because of this, it had fallen off my report! I still thought it was a cool idea and decided to try it out. Basically, if you have a ding or two from the distant past on your credit report, writing a goodwill letter may remove those old dings from your credit report.

A goodwill letter is essentially a letter that you write to your creditor asking them to remove a negative item or account from your credit report. Explain that you know you made the mistake but have changed, and are now trying to improve your credit rating. Creditors must be truthful about what they report to credit agencies. However, they are not required to report everything about your credit history with them if they don’t want to. Of course, they’re also not required to remove a negative item just because you ask, but I imagine that it can’t hurt to try. For a sample goodwill letter and some background information on the idea, visit this post on the Credit Talk Forum.