stupid newbie requests opinions

Have you spoken to Chase yet? I was very happy with Chase and what they did for me to set me on my path to repairing my less than stellar credit!

not yet. i plan on calling them during my lunch break. what did they do for you?

my interest was over 30%, they reduced it to 9% and credited me back about a years worth of the difference in my interest amounts. My dad had been a 40 year customer and had passed away which is when I was in a pretty big depression and financial problems, Chase had been my only card for 15 years. They treated me very well in a terrible time in my life.

now, it seems as all i am doing is reducing interest rates. not really settling anything. even with the lower rates, it feels as though it will take forever to pay the cc's off. should i just ignore payments and attempt to settle when they call in a few months? mayeb everything could be taken care of in 2-3 years that way, as opposed to never.

email sent to CHASE:

I have a settlement proposal for Chase. My wife lost her teaching position in 12/08. We have been picking and pulling from different accts, trying to pay the various creditors we owe. I'm not sure if we will be able to make the minimums for all the accounts for the following billing cycles. We have a little savings left. My current balance is about $9,600. We would like to close the account and be marked as "paid as agreed." The amount we can spare to close the account is $2500, and we can do it in one lump sum. We hope that you accept the offer. It's really our only alternative, because if not, the $2500 will be spread to make minumums on all our cc's, and that won't last long. Then, unfortunately, we would have to go past due. We have had no issues with Chase bank, and in the future, when our financial situation is repaired, we would gladly consider banking with you again. Please let me know asap via email or my cellphone. Thanks for your time.

I am about to be late with my 3 Chase accounts, so I will be dealing with them soon, too. Did they respond to your email? How delinquent are you with them? (I apologize if you already stated that in an earlier post)

can your wife not find another teaching job? They are ALWAYS looking for teachers everywhere I have ever lived.

maggie: i am not delinquent at all yet. i just made my payment a day before sending the email. they responded with a telephone number to call. i don't think my offer is going to work.

smo65d11: not in the middle of a school year. sept would be the earliest.

maggie: i am not delinquent at all yet. i just made my payment a day before sending the email. they responded with a telephone number to call. i don't think my offer is going to work.

smo65d11: not in the middle of a school year. sept would be the earliest.

I see. Seems like you have to be pretty behind on payments before they consider budging, I hate the idea. They will probably offer you some hardship options like reducing or getting rid of interest and fees. I agreed to that with my Citi card, 0% (in place of 28.9%) for a year with no fees. It helps, but not enough in the long run. Will you call them? Please let us know what they offer you.

i plan on calling them at lunch time. i'm just going to come clean and state they can offer me no interest, but the money just won't be there to make the payment, so they can take the cash lump sum up front, or they can wait til it's 150 days past due, and at that point they'll probably settle for about $2k. might as well make it easier for both parties involved. we'll see what happens with that. if they bite, i can get to work on discover and amex. i will try to bully amex as well, but not settle....just get the apr they mentioned AND a payment i can afford.

I doubt they will do anything until you are 150+ days past due, but I guess you never know till you try

i also spoke with a nice woman at freedomdebt just to get an idea. awaiting numbers from them.

Well, good luck, I'll be checking back to see what happens. Hope you can work something good out

i called the number on the back of my chase cc. i asked to speak with the settlements dept. i explained my situation, and offered them $2600(27%) in one lump sum. she forwarded the request on and told me to call back this weekend to get an answer. i will call monday. if they bite, i may try the same thing with discover. i already agreed to a hardship with them, but maybe they will take a lump sum as well to just be done with it.

the only bad thing with chase is that she stated about the 1099(i knew that from here), and that they report it as "paid for less." i asked about "paid as agreed" but she said chase doesn't do that. still, if i can get it paid off for that amount and go to town on the other two......

got a response from fredomdebt.com:

Total unsecured debt amount = $53,899
Your total estimated cost (including our fees: 15%{$8085}) = $35,419
Your approximate savings = $18,000
Maximum Term of program = 42 months (versus minimum payments for 35 years, 3 months)
Monthly payment = $843 (current minimums = $1,127)


$843 is still too high for us right now. i'll just hope the chase settlement comes through.