<prompt> Human: A while ago, I used a credit card to help my mom with some of her bills when she was fighting cancer. Luckily, she beat it, and shes getting better. While she was fighting it, I ended up hitting about 2,800 on a Chase card. At the same time, of course, I ran into some difficulties of my own, and some of it I can definitely chalk up to being dumb. I got a letter from a collections agency the other day offering to accept a one-time payment of about 680. I think thats fantastic, and Im planning on doing that, but I was wondering how doing that would affect my credit. Obviously the account is closed now, and the late payments will remain on my credit history, but would paying off the card in this way significantly affect my credit at all? Thanks for your help!  <response>: Ask them to include removing the account from your credit report entirely, as part of the settlement. 