Advanta, BOA, WAMU, Discover, Chase, debt settlement ?'s

Hi,

I also posted the following in the collection/creditors forum - wasn't sure which it belongs in since it's about debt settlement, with creditors.

We can't afford our house, we are self employed and aren't bringing in enough money to pay the mortgage and cc's. We realized this a year ago and put the house on the market last May. No, it hasn't sold. So we used our cc's to get by. Now we have an agent that specializes in short sales and are working with countrywide and suntrust to short sale our house. It is 50,000 below appraisal price and still no lookers! We have 7 kids to house and feed, I'm a bit nervous about our future.

We owed 2500 (2900 after late fees, etc) to Advanta. They offered to settle it for $1629 in one lump sum payment through their handy web site. We stopped paying in March and just received and accepted that offer. They were aggressively calling but we used call blocking on them and then they sent an email asking me to check their web site for an offer. Why can't they all be that easy?

WAMU, after sending me to some supposed collection dept, then sent a letter to check their site, wamucanhelp, for their offer. One card - $500 balance - settled for $269. The other card - $4500 - settled for $2100. Both arranged for four payments. Wow. Of couse these accepted offers are going to give me 1099s.

Discover has a web site too but it does not offer a discount on the principal (yet). (Balance=2500) I wonder if it will? Anyone know?

Talked to BOA today and I owe them the most. 12,000 on one card alone - $6000 on another and $5500 on another. They'll waive late fees, reduce interest to 4.5% and set up the payment plan for 60 months - the three together come up to $400 a month. Ouch, that's more than when we were on time with our payments. Anyone have any experience with them? Will they offer/accept a lump settlement for less than the principal? Will they do it for more than 4 months? Will they just sue me since so much is at stake?

Chase has been nice on the phone, and not harassed. They just call once a month. Will they end up making an offer, or getting aggressive? My balance with them is $8k.

Thanks for your input and experience. Lisa

From what I've read in other posts, B of A is generally one of the easiest to settle with, and Discover is one of the hardest. We had three accounts with Chase, and they threatened a lawsuit on one but not on the other two, so I think it just depends on whatever their internal criteria is.

Maybe others will post more advice/experiences.

Bank of America used to be easy to settle with but in the last year they have been a real pain in the butt. They will settle for a lump sum like the other creditors but it may take longer for them to be willing to bend. Hang in there though and save your money so when they are willing to settle you can jump on their offer.

I am in a debt settlement program. I had nine cards, and two accounts with Bank of America. Those two with BoA, which totalled about 20,000 together, were the first two to settle, both around 30%. I didn't even have any contact with them, they dealt directly with my settlement co. from the beginning. Chase has been nice to me also, but the account was due to be charged off on 7/31 and I haven't heard anything since. I have been in the program since January, so by this time all the collection agencies etc. are dealing with the settlement co. and I rarely get calls any more. So far so good.

I have a car loan with BOA. I only have 4 payments left. Anyhow, this month's payment was 3 days late due to cash flow. They called me on the third day (the day I paid) and stated in the call that it was being recorded and that it was a collection call. I won't ever do business with BOA again. I realize my due date was a certain time but to call after 3 days is ridiculous. My Chrysler account has been up to 14 days late and no one has ever called.

I had two cards with Chase. Yes, they are nice to talk to and really tried to work with me. The only problem with Chase was that they did not wait to send me court papers, but I was able to settle before it went to court.

Discover didn't even wait. They sent me directly to collections. But I was able to pay that balance off quickly so I did not have too many harrassing calls. Discover would not even talk to me after it went to collections.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

That's interesting because I actually found that B of A called almost the least of any of our creditors when we defaulted on all of our credit cards. RBS and Advanta called every single day, Wamu called every two to three days, several others called a couple of times a week, and B of A only called once every week or two. It just reconfirms to me that it's hard to predict what each creditor will do!

Hi,

Thanks for the input! I still have a lot to learn and read...

I can't log in, I didn't get my password and the system isn't emailing it to me....maybe I typoed my email wrong...

Thanks for you all's input. WAMU was the biggest harasser for us, so I was surprised when they made the offers to settle. I am the most nervous about BOA since they have the most to loose. I sure wish we had been able to sell our house last year. Owning real estate was the biggest mistake we've ever made! Well, thanks again. No stress....it's only money!

I owed BoA about 140K in unsecured debt. At the beginning the calls were agressive and threatening, then as they changed from one dept. to another the people became more reasonable. I talked about a settlement but they said that was out of the question, because the charges were too recent , etc. My position was hard, I did not pay them a penny, and after about 5 months they called and mentioned that I mentioned something about a settlement before, so they agreed to settle for 19% of the balance in one single payement. I am not sure, but I think I was lucky because they were short of cash (this was a few month ago), I even read that in a NYT article. So, good luck

I decided to do debt settlement on my own -- and yes it's stressful - so far American express is at 54% (month three), Chase is about 75%(month 2) and Advanta waffles between 90-70%). I sent letters etc - Amx sent me to Zwicker and asso - hung up on the worst guy - talked to two others that weren't that bad. I would love to hear from anyone that was successful getting settlements on their own. Really scary time, but with me, it's either this or bk

I am very close to settling 5 very big accounts. BOA 20% of 60,000 ( 1 lump sum) Chase 30% of 15,000 ( 4 months to pay)GE Money 30% of 10,000 ( 1 lump sum) and Citi 55% of 9,000 ( Over a year). Amex will take 1100 of 2100 and Capital won't budge off 2400. The bottom line is I am tapped out asking people for money and my wife's company folded. After settling like 100,000 worth of debt - I will end up with charge offs on my little accounts. I tried and will continue till the end. When you have a legit hardship things work out. Now I need to get through the IRS and the Insolvent test.

It's really great to hear some of them will settle as low - like Chase. I just hope this works out -- I've done my homework - they all should settle some. Any one else have recent settlements? and how long did it take you to make them. Just trying to wreck my credit the least - and then maybe with getting zero balance letters - it will recover in my lifetime.

I recently settled with BOA for 20% on $33,000 (1 lump sum) and Citigroup for 20% on $30,000 (1 lump sum). Anyone have experience settling with Chase, Amex, HSBC or Discover as low as 20%?

WAMU has done nothing for me. I tried settling but they have done jack and s***

Last month I settled with BOA for 30% over 4 months. I settled with Discover for 55%. I'm struggling with the little retailers.

To spatterson, bill, and neverusingcreditagain - did your accts get charged off before you settled or did you settle before CO?