Help with Collection Agency!!!

Hello, Any advice or opinions will greatly be appreciated:


My account has been charged off from Honda for a motorcycle that got stolen. We did not miss any payments but since the bike is gone they wanted us to pay in full or they would charge off the account. We could not pay the $9,800 in full so it was charged off.

Now I have a collection agency willing to take a settlement of $4,400 if I paid them by the end of the month. I tried to negotiate with $4,000 and they said no.
If I pay it next month it will be $5,000.

I do not know anything about debt settlement or how to deal with collection agencies or how it works but I just want this debt to go away because its killing my good credit.

I want to know if this is a good deal? Should I accept? How should I negotiate with them? What would be the best thing to do????




Thank you in advance for anyone's suggestions

Did you not have insurance?? Usually insurance is a requirement of financing.

Only you can decide if this is a good settlement. Otherwise you could be looking at being sued, have your wages garnish and having your bank account levied.

I only had the bike for 10 days and we were in the process of getting it insured.
Thanks for ur reply

It does not take 10 days to get a vehicle injured....you should have set up the insurance to take affect the day you took delivery. One visit or call to an insurance agent and you are set. You should not have been on the road without it.

Motorcycles are considered toys, not vehicles and are NOT required to be insured.
Trust me I tried to but the agent wanted to take a picture and there is no way I was going to ride out during that week of thunderstorms




Shoulda Coulda Woulda...lesson learned...now can we please move forward
last time i checked this thread was about collection agencies

First, do yourself a favor and lose the attitude. This forum is here to help but you do not need to get rude with people here. You came asking for help, remember??

Second, what state do you live in? I found only three that do not require insurance on a motorcycle. Washington and Montana do not require it at all, and Florida doesnt require it if you have a clean driving record. However, ALL states treat them as motor vehicles, and not toys--you will see this to be true in traffic laws.

EDIT--while those states do not require insurance, I find it very strange that Honda would not have required it as a part of your approval conditions. They know the liability that exists and I cannot imagine them allowing you to take a bike home on credit without making sure that their interests are protected. Again, read your contract and see what the deal is. If your contract requires insurance and they allowed you to ride off without it, you may have some different issues in play on this one.

Third, you are already most likely showing damage to your credit. While paying now will reduce the damage, it will likely still show that you settled a debt for less than full balance. That combined with the late payments showing on there will drop your score a bit too. The damage probably wont be that bad, but I want you to know it can still be there.

If you have the money to pay the settlement, then it's a lot better than having to pay the full amount. But I am a bit concerned on this one--something just doesnt feel right to me. how long ago was this account charged off? And does Honda still own it, or was it sold to a debt buyer? I do not know what provisions are in place for your finance agreement, but if I were in your shoes, I would review your original finance agreement--I do not know if they had the legal right to accelerate the balance due on your loan like they did. They very well might have, but I just do not know....never financed a bike with Honda.

OK, once you check that out, if they had the right per the agreement, then my next place to ponder is how old the debt is and if honda still owns it. A lot of collection agencies will try to trick you into thinking you are settling a debt when in fact they treat your payment as just that--a partial payment. Before you do ANYTHING, find out who owns the debt and let us know how old it is. And then, if all of that lines up, and you want to settle, get it in writing BEFORE you send payment.

I will have more info once you get back to us.