Is it better to have an account removed from your credit report completely or to negotiate for 'Paid As Agreed'?

In the case of a collection account, it is always in your best interest to have the tradeline completely removed from your credit report as opposed to having it show paid.

If the account is NOT a collection or P&L, then the opposite may be true. Let's say you have a credit card with 6 late payments being reported to your credit history. You negotiate with your creditor to have all the late payments removed from the tradeline, showing that it has been paid as agreed, never late. This would be better then to have the entire tradeline removed, as the now clean payment history will help to raise your FICO score. Having it removed will not have as positive an effect. You will lose all the credit history associated with the tradeline, as well as (if it is a revolving account), available credit. Not having sufficient credit history can be just as detrimental as having bad credit.

Hope this helps!