How to Find Out if a Creditor Wrote Off Your Debt

When a creditor writes off your debt, it doesn’t mean your financial responsibility to repay the debt is eliminated. Rather, the account may be reported as a charge-off to alert potential creditors that you’ve failed to meet credit obligations. The easiest way to see if a creditor has written off your account is to check your credit report. Although the company you owe may have written off your debt, it is possible that your account will be sent to a collection agency for recovery. In this case, you’ll want to know if the account has been written off so you’ll know who you need to pay to settle the account.

Step 1

Order a copy of your credit report from each credit bureau. You can order one free credit report each year from annualcreditreport.com. This is the official free credit report site and is partnered with the Federal Trade Commission to provide reports from each of the three credit bureaus – TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.

Step 2

Look at each report and find the name of your creditor. Not every creditor reports to all three bureaus, so it’s possible that your account may appear on one report, but not another.

Step 3

View the status of your account. Creditors that write off your debt report the account as a charge-off account to the credit bureau it regularly reports your account to. The most common term used to indicate your account has been written off is “Charge Off,” but you may see other statements like “Profit and Loss Write-Off,” “Debt Write Off,” or “Bad Debt Charge-Off.”

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