 TITLE: What Happens If I Stop Paying My Credit Cards? CONTENT: Your Account May Be Sent to Collections\n---------------------------------------\nAround the 180-day point, the credit card issuer will likely assume it won't receive a payment on the account and will then charge off your account. This accounting procedure lets the company deduct the unpaid bill from its earnings, but doesn't forgive your debt.\nThe card issuer may also send or sell your account to a collection agency, which will then try to collect the debt. By this point, late fees and interest charges may have brought the total balance much higher than the original unpaid amount.\nBoth the charge-off and collection account may appear on your credit reports and further hurt your credit.\nWhen a series of missed payments leads to a closed account, those payments and related negative marks (such as the charge-off) will be removed from your credit report seven years after the first payment was missed—also known as the date of first delinquency. END