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lord_daeloth posted:Every settlement I've made I started at half of what I could actually send them, which generally ended up being around 25% of the amount "owed" on the account. They might be a bit bleh about the offer if they are the original creditors, but it doesn't hurt to try. I also made sure to state that any offer of settlement is an offer only and not a promise to pay unless unless a written settlement agreement can be reached. Probably not strictly needed, but I always felt it was a good idea to cover all bases. Usually after a couple rounds of haggling it would wind up around 50%ish of what was owed, or right around what funds I had available. Most should jump at these offers since its way more than they'd get if they sold it off to a collection agency and saves them in attorneys fees if they were thinking about suing. Depending on how hard you push, you can probably get even better deals. For most that was it, they'd send the agreement in writing, I'd send them a cashiers check via certified mail and tada. One company, though, sent me a financial disclosure form I had to fill out with copies of my bank statements before they would agree to the amount, I just blacked out all the giant dildo and horse tranq purchases before sending the copy off and refused to fill in some of the more personal bits (like my wife's employer's contact info???). In the end they still took the agreement, so it seems like you can be a bit pushy about it, though don't take that as any sort of hard and fast advice. Good faith offers of repayment are also probably good in the event that you get taken to court, though everyone I've ever dealt with always settled before things got that far, whether collection agency or original creditor. Great advice, thanks! I'm guessing this is for accounts that are already "closed" or otherwise dead and I'm just making payments on them. The cards that I want to actually KEEP, I suspect I can't play this game with, correct? I'm not sure if it's fortunate or unfortunate that most of the cards are still active/in good standing, but the largest one by an order of magnitude is closed/on the payment plan, so we'll see what I can't do there. Once I have all my ducks in a row, I'll report back!
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Mar 15, 2021 21:13
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Oh yeah, I can't see there being any way they'd accept a settlement and let you keep the line of credit.
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Mar 15, 2021 21:40
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FWIW after defaulting on some cards, having them written off and OCs selling the debt, and going through many collectors - since they have fallen off my reports every one of those companies has given me a new card. Except AmEx. Once a year I apply for one, and they send me a letter saying I can have a new card if I pay them half what I walked away from.
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Mar 16, 2021 02:48
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Big Taint posted:FWIW after defaulting on some cards, having them written off and OCs selling the debt, and going through many collectors - since they have fallen off my reports every one of those companies has given me a new card. Except AmEx. Once a year I apply for one, and they send me a letter saying I can have a new card if I pay them half what I walked away from. drat, that's ice cold hahaha.
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Mar 16, 2021 03:50
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Zarin posted:drat, that's ice cold hahaha.
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Mar 16, 2021 15:55
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Dik Hz posted:I mean, if you got stiffed you'd probably say the same thing.... I mean, me personally? Sure, I can be petty and vindictive. Kinda surprised that a business that sees this poo poo every day would be though lol I can't say it doesn't make SENSE; I'm just surprised they're going through the effort of tracking that a decade+ out.
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Mar 16, 2021 16:39
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lord_daeloth posted:Oh yeah, I can't see there being any way they'd accept a settlement and let you keep the line of credit. I saw in your previous message that you said you did your final settlement with a cashier's check via certified mail. What would the advantage of that be vs. just having them pull the money from my checking account online? I'm guessing it provides a paper trail or something but figured I'd ask.
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Mar 16, 2021 18:59
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Zarin posted:I mean, me personally? Sure, I can be petty and vindictive. They are notorious for doing their own collections rather than selling the debt off, and when I sent them a Dunning letter on a lark they sent me a fat envelope with my original signed application and every statement they ever sent me. I was impressed. AmEx doesn’t gently caress around.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:03
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Big Taint posted:They are notorious for doing their own collections rather than selling the debt off, and when I sent them a Dunning letter on a lark they sent me a fat envelope with my original signed application and every statement they ever sent me. I was impressed. AmEx doesn’t gently caress around. I looked up "Dunning Letter" but it looked like it was going the other direction from what I'm trying to do here (send them an offer to negotiate a settlement at a lower value than the account value). Do you happen to have any links lying around with how-to's or examples for this sort of thing? I've got my ducks in a row now, and it is now time for me to approach lenders hat-in-hand and see if they won't, in essence, pay me to gently caress off.
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Mar 18, 2021 15:17
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Dunning letter is the standard response to any new collector. You’re formally asking them to show that the debt is owed by you. You can also ask that they only communicate via mail. Since it sounds like some of these debts are still with the OC a Dunning letter is sort of pointless. I never tried to negotiate any settlements or pay-for-deletes so I don’t have any advice for that. Other people in the thread have had degrees of success.
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Mar 18, 2021 19:15
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A dunning letter is sent by a creditor to encourage a debtor to pay up. You're talking about a debt verification letter.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:53
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The The CPFB has some sample debt validation forms you can use if you want to. Also check the statute of limitations for debt collection in your state--at a certain point it's no longer legal to try and collect but places will still try. Note that the statute begins counting from the date of the last payment, not the date the debt was incurred.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:59
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marshalljim posted:A dunning letter is sent by a creditor to encourage a debtor to pay up. You're talking about a debt verification letter. You’re right, I should be saying dunning response.
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Mar 19, 2021 00:41
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Zarin posted:I saw in your previous message that you said you did your final settlement with a cashier's check via certified mail. Yeah, just to have a paper trail mostly, but also to make sure that they get the exact amount we agreed too, nothing more, nothing less. Certified mail is so that they can't say they never got the letter/check, cashier's check is so that they don't get to see any of my checking account info. I also include a signed letter that I make a copy of stating that I've enclosed the final settlement amount agreed upon and that acceptance of said payment is agreement that the debt is settled otherwise they need to send it back, and requesting that they respond in writing as to whether or not they accept settlement of the account (they almost never send this confirmation for some reason), yadda yadda. Its probably all a bit overkill, but I didn't want to leave any room for interpretation. I've heard horror stories (in my own family even) of people just having money taken out of their account from default judgements and the like. Speaking of, if you have poo poo in collections, don't let your parents give you power of attorney or bank account access, apparently.
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Mar 19, 2021 21:36
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lord_daeloth posted:Yeah, just to have a paper trail mostly, but also to make sure that they get the exact amount we agreed too, nothing more, nothing less. Certified mail is so that they can't say they never got the letter/check, cashier's check is so that they don't get to see any of my checking account info. I also include a signed letter that I make a copy of stating that I've enclosed the final settlement amount agreed upon and that acceptance of said payment is agreement that the debt is settled otherwise they need to send it back, and requesting that they respond in writing as to whether or not they accept settlement of the account (they almost never send this confirmation for some reason), yadda yadda. Its probably all a bit overkill, but I didn't want to leave any room for interpretation. I've heard horror stories (in my own family even) of people just having money taken out of their account from default judgements and the like. Speaking of, if you have poo poo in collections, don't let your parents give you power of attorney or bank account access, apparently. Luckily, to my knowledge, nothing is truly in collections yet; it's all with the original creditors still. Though I'm not sure if that'll make trying to settle easier or harder. . . . well, nothing is in collections to my knowledge, anyway. It's on my to-do list to pull credit reports and make sure I'm aware of everything on there, but I've been in triage mode just getting everything current (so I can stop paying overdraft and late fees) and I'll do the full recon later.  Adulting is hard.
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Mar 20, 2021 02:20
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occamsnailfile posted:The The CPFB has some sample debt validation forms you can use if you want to. Also check the statute of limitations for debt collection in your state--at a certain point it's no longer legal to try and collect but places will still try. Note that the statute begins counting from the date of the last payment, not the date the debt was incurred. Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is a debt collector can attempt to collect any debt you owe at any point; the statute of limitations applies to whether or not they can sue you/garnish your wages/etc. Source: I got a letter once saying “hey you owe us this amount. We can’t sue you for it and it won’t show on your credit report, but feel free to pay us anyway”
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Mar 20, 2021 05:55
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Puppy Galaxy posted:Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is a debt collector can attempt to collect any debt you owe at any point; the statute of limitations applies to whether or not they can sue you/garnish your wages/etc. You are correct, as far as I am aware. Those letters are cute, my wife still gets them from time-to-time, haha.
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Mar 21, 2021 05:12
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Puppy Galaxy posted:Correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is a debt collector can attempt to collect any debt you owe at any point; the statute of limitations applies to whether or not they can sue you/garnish your wages/etc. Yeah, you're right about that part--they lose access to legal methods of compulsion though they can still attempt; I was mixed up a bit.
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Mar 22, 2021 01:57
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Since all my current outstanding debts are with original creditors, I'm gonna try calling one I guess and see if I can't verbally get to a settlement agreement (that I would then have them send the terms of it to me in writing). If this goes poorly, maybe I'll try starting the next one in writing; not sure who I would send that to though. Wish me luck, and/or tell me why I'm a dumbass! Edit: I went back and read every post from 2018 or so onward, and it seems like most of the thread experience is with debt collectors. Since one of my OCs has already put one account on a payment plan, I'm going to try for settle-for-close or settle-for-delete instead of a payment plan, but we'll see how that goes! Zarin fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Mar 22, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 16:37
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Update: Attempt number one: we were transferred to collections, and began working on a settlement over the phone. The rep threw out a number, we countered with another, she said "hold on, my system is taking a moment, one sec" and then we were disconnected. Called back, told the first-line person what we were trying to do, and we were transferred to another department that was trying to put us on a payment plan. "No, no, we want to settle and close." "I can't do settlements here" "Okay, no problem, who can? We were just talking to them before we were disconnected." "Here, let me transfer you." *immediate disconnect* Third call, told the first-line person what we were trying to do, and we were transferred to what should have been the correct department. "Your account is in good standing, we can't settle" "That's not true, we were talking to someone who was walking us through the process, then we were disconnected" "We don't do settlements" "Is there a place where I can work this out in writing?" "No" "I don't believe you" *I hung up* So, now to try and find out what the process of doing this with an Original Creditor is . . . . If anyone's got ideas, let 'em rip
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Mar 23, 2021 21:44
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Keep trying until you get somebody else who has a clue/ask for a supervisor? You might also try googling and see if anyone has written about experiences negotiating settlements with that bank, they all seem to do things a little differently.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:39
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Big Taint posted:Keep trying until you get somebody else who has a clue/ask for a supervisor? You might also try googling and see if anyone has written about experiences negotiating settlements with that bank, they all seem to do things a little differently. Yeah. It was pretty funny, my wife is the primary accountholder and I'm in the notes as an authorized person but they REFUSED to talk to me and only her once I said I wanted to close the account. I figure I may need to do a conference call with her and just help crowdsource responses in Discord or something, because she is MUCH less comfortable dealing with this kinda poo poo than I am. Edit: Like, literally, we were on speaker and the agent asked a question, I answered, she said "I need to talk to <female name>" and my wife repeated what I said exactly. This went on for several minutes before I got annoyed and we hung up.
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Mar 24, 2021 02:14
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I'm considering spending my tax refund (larger than expected due to some life circumstances) on getting a pay for delete on a debt I have. How do you make sure they actually delete it rather than just saying "oh yes we'll delete it" and then marking it settled? I assume you need to get something in writing but I'm not sure what the exact terminology would be. And then if they mark it settled anyway what do you do? Would that be breach of contract if you have a signed letter saying they will remove it and they don't? Basically I'm hoping to get a promotion this year that would come with a 30-50% raise, in which case I could start saving up to buy some land and a tiny house, but my credit is turbofucked from being unemployed for almost a year back in 2018-2019. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Mar 25, 2021 |
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Mar 25, 2021 00:12
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As far as I know, pay for delete isn't really a thing anymore. If it helps, though, all my stuff was marked as settled and I just got a home loan in December.
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Mar 26, 2021 22:00
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Do you know what the credit difference is between outstanding collection and a paid/settled collection? I was going to go for a pay for delete option as well, but maybe I should just pay out this paltry ($103) debt to just move past it (even though I firmly believe it's the fault of my old apartment complex). It dropped my credit score to around 640 and I'd like to purchase a home with a better credit score.
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Apr 9, 2021 22:07
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GordonComstock posted:Do you know what the credit difference is between outstanding collection and a paid/settled collection? I was going to go for a pay for delete option as well, but maybe I should just pay out this paltry ($103) debt to just move past it (even though I firmly believe it's the fault of my old apartment complex). It dropped my credit score to around 640 and I'd like to purchase a home with a better credit score. There almost isn't a difference in regard to FICO scoring, both are considered derogatory tradelines, which is why the advice has always been to not pay anything until you negotiate pay for delete. That doesn't mean a mortgage underwriter won't see a difference, though.
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Apr 9, 2021 22:45
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GordonComstock posted:Do you know what the credit difference is between outstanding collection and a paid/settled collection? I was going to go for a pay for delete option as well, but maybe I should just pay out this paltry ($103) debt to just move past it (even though I firmly believe it's the fault of my old apartment complex). It dropped my credit score to around 640 and I'd like to purchase a home with a better credit score. Depending on how much time you have, it might be worth challenging it on your various credit reports. Every old derogatory mark I challenged came off within a couple months.
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Apr 11, 2021 02:25
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Thanks for the replies, I'll just follow through with my old plan to send a debt validation letter (the debt company Hunter Warfield has only called once, never left voicemails nor has sent me any mail. I googled the missed call number, which led me to figure out what was going on). Assuming they respond, I'll try and do pay for delete. The debt is a little over two years old, and was automatically sent to collections after 30 days because it was more than $100 (it's $101.17, yay!). This is literally the only black mark on my credit, and I want to buy a house when the market cools down.
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Apr 11, 2021 16:29
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Remember to only communicate in writing or record your phone calls (definitely disclose that you’re recording any calls). It’s easy to get somebody on the phone to agree to something and then ghost when it’s time to actually do it, and any agreement you make to pay on a loan re-ages it and resets the statute of limitations.
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Apr 11, 2021 20:12
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Backstory: I'm the guy who found out my wife opened and maxxed out some cards without telling me; I am now in charge of household finances for the rest of eternity and am working to correct this. Note: All my experiences here are in dealing with the original creditors (OC). I know nothing about dealing with collections agencies. IMPORTANT NOTE: Turns out saying "Yeah, make Zarin an authorized user to handle this on my behalf" is NOT just a note in the system; it will ALSO add that (terrible, late-payment-ridden) item to my (impeccable) credit report. BUYING A HOUSE IS HARD ENOUGH, THIS IS NOT HELPING. Anyway. Called the first card to get rid of and got sent over to collections to negotiate a settlement. In the middle of the negotiation process (we had basically arrived at a number and the person on the other end was putting it in the system) the line went dead. gently caress. Called back; "We don't do negotiations." "Yes you do." "No we don't." "Fine, let me talk to collections." Line goes dead again. Third time, got over to collections and some rude lady ended up flustering us and we hung up on her. Somehow, she took it upon herself to close the card. -_- What made us really upset was that I was the one trying to do the talking, on speakerphone; wife had already given me clearance to speak on her behalf, but the person on the other end of the line wanted to play games and was straight-up REFUSING to answer anything I said with "I'm sorry, I can only talk to the cardholder about this matter", which is what ended up causing us to hang up in frustration. Lesson learned: don't get upset, and take lots of notes. All the notes. Called back a week later. This time, I decided we were going to skip the "this person can speak on my behalf" poo poo and instead started by setting up a conference call with just my wife and I. Each of us were at our computers with Discord open, then we added the 800 number to the conference call. I kept my headset muted while wife was doing the talking and I was taking notes/feeding questions/feeding answers via Discord PMs, with the occasional finger snap that meant "mute the mic a sec so we can discuss". Worked pretty well, but I really wish she had the skills to just do this herself  Call went okay; once we hit a roadblock, we asked to be escalated to the next level of authority. That worked for a bit, but we ended up needing to escalate beyond the level of authority staffed on a Saturday afternoon, so they set up a callback for the weekday.Weekday callback rolls around, and the Authority Person on the other end finally agrees to honor the negotiation that the very first person had started to put into the system "even though she shouldn't have done that". Whatever, but sorry if I got you in trouble, original collections person  But then things got weird: "Normally I wouldn't do this at all, but you said you had funds available right now, gimme a debit card number" and we were like "uhhhhh we want it in writing" and the response was "Nope, debit card, I'll run it right now for the agreed upon amount, then someone from collections will delete the rest of the balance and you can request a zero-balance letter in 15-20 days." I was pretty sketched out by all of this but I also wanted it to be over, so I went ahead and gave the debit card info. It was a stressful couple of days, but the rest of the balance fell off the account before the week was up, so I guess they decided to keep their end of the bargain.So. One card down, several more to go.
Zarin fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Apr 13, 2021 |
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Apr 13, 2021 03:54
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Never negotiate over the phone.* Always negotiate in writing. *unless you're willing to record every call and be clear that you're recording it
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Apr 15, 2021 23:26
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vortmax posted:Never negotiate over the phone.* Yeah, I was worried that I'd hosed up. Turned out okay, though. I'm wondering if it's different because I'm dealing with the original creditors (who are, like, actual companies with customer service departments) than debt collectors (who are . . . not). Unless you think there's another way this'll come back to bite me . . . ?
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Apr 15, 2021 23:34
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Zarin posted:Yeah, I was worried that I'd hosed up. Turned out okay, though. Did they send you anything saying that the account was settled? I once had a phone company that I settled with and then later got a collections notice (for $75 lol). Gotta have that documentation.
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Apr 16, 2021 20:30
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lord_daeloth posted:Did they send you anything saying that the account was settled? I once had a phone company that I settled with and then later got a collections notice (for $75 lol). Gotta have that documentation. They said that after 15 days from the phone call, that I can call and request a zero-balance letter. That date is marked on the calendar and you can bet we'll be doing that. I can see on the website that the account balance was reduced to zero, but that may not be enough. I'll be sure to screenshot it all the same, however.
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Apr 16, 2021 21:14
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Hey, I posted this in the legal thread, but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone here has any answers as well.PuErhTeabag posted:Backstory: Things I've learned from the OP - include more specifics in the debt dispute letter like "do not call me" and specifics on what kind of evidence they should produce (a contract and consent waiver). Has anyone else here been given a collections notice for debt, particularly medical debt, that isn't theirs? Is there any recourse beyond clearing myself? I tried to get them to send me the EKG report I was billed for so that I could file a HIPAA violation on their asses, but they told me that nothing was in their records.
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May 18, 2021 14:04
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PuErhTeabag posted:Hey, I posted this in the legal thread, but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone here has any answers as well. A single medical collections of that size on your credit report is having virtually no impact on your score if its several years old. You could probably just as well ignore it until it fell off. Second, make sure to dispute it on your credit reports. I've had varying success with that (gently caress you, Experian), but it may make it go away without having to work with the hospital or collection agency. Sign up for creditkarma to keep an eye on your credit reports in case it pops back up.
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May 18, 2021 14:13
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Dik Hz posted:In the good news category: UPDATE: I managed to get the hospital to remove the bill from their collections account, and I have a letter from the collections agency stating that they are no longer handling this account and to contact the hospital for further information. The letter also states that they will remove it from my credit record if it has already been added. The hospital claims (as they did before) that it's taken care of and there are no charges on my account anymore. However, the hospital refuses to provide me with any form of written documentation. They initially promised to send me a letter and an itemized bill showing that it was voided, but never did and when I called back they told me that it wasn't possible. They say that because the bill was voided, it isn't printable (wtf?) and therefore they can't mail me a copy of it saying that it's voided. I was also told that they aren't allowed to send a letter stating that all charges have been voided. I asked if I could request a copy of the customer service notes where they investigated it and found that it was incorrect, but that just made them get defensive. I guess I'm probably fine unless it pops up again, but it's still frustrating that they claim there is no way they can provide documentation.
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Jun 15, 2021 20:53
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Does anyone have a good sample letter to credit agencies after a collection agency failed to validate debt? Basically, they've never given me a written notice that I owed the debt, I learned about it through a credit check and recently sent a validation letter certified mail that they never responded to with written notice. Google hasn't really led me to anything particularly useful, it's mostly just debt validation letters. In light of the collection agency not validating debt, I believe I've got the right to dispute it with the credit bureaus (please correct me if I have that wrong).
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Jun 26, 2021 16:11
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Cross posting this from another BFC thread just to make sure the advice of "just ignore it" is my best recourse:Grizzled Patriarch posted:Hey all, quick question about an old debt that my partner has:
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Aug 13, 2021 03:04
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You could send them a ‘new phone who dis?’ letter or just ignore it. I would just ignore it.
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Aug 13, 2021 17:57
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