Stop paying cc, keep charging on it?

I'm not sure why you'd want to do this. In the least I would consider it unethical to keep racking up further charges if you know you're not going to pay for them. But who cares about ethics, go on a shopping spree for all it's worth. Sooner or later they will cut you off when your account becomes delinquent.

What are you trying to accomplish? You want to buy a lot of stuff, and settle right away so that you end up paying less than the cost of the merchandise? That's not going to happen. They usually won't settle until your account is charged off; by then all the interest and late fees accrued will have more than doubled your balance. So when they do settle in the future, you might get lucky to settle for what you owe today, and really bad marks on your credit to boot. Or else they sell it to a JDB and JDB sues for the balance.

easy way to get sued......

In my experiences with creditors, I don't think that it would be easy to settle with one if you are staying current on others. The creditor can pull a copy of your credit report, so they will know that you are making payments to others. That tells them that you don't really have a hardship. The reason that they might agree to settle for less is because they believe that you are unable to pay the full balance or that you are unable to pay your monthly payments. However, if you are paying other creditors, they will probably not believe that you can't pay them.

Also, we did use some of our credit cards right up until we hit the wall and were unable to continue making payments. It wasn't our intention to default, but we had a loss of income and were unable to keep up with the payments. I can tell you that the creditors with more recent charges were definitely harder to deal with than those without recent charges.

I also will say this in my opinion---as long as you accept partial payments you have to restart the collection process and proof of debt owed over and over yes or no?
I think 3rd party will accept partial payments or whatever they can get but original creditor should never accept less than what is owed if they plan on going to court as soon as possible and trying to recover fullest amount of debt owed that they can

If your partial payments never bring the account current, then the collection process can start at any time once the account is delinquent.

Thank you for the responses.

I didn't plan on doing anything illegal or unethical. I have a large balance on several cards. I will not be able to make the payments soon, so I wasn't sure if I should stop using them for regular small purchases like gas,etc. I will stop making any charges now.

Debt Cruncher said, "They usually won't settle until your account is charged off; by then all the interest and late fees accrued will have more than doubled your balance. So when they do settle in the future, you might get lucky to settle for what you owe today..."

Is this true. I mean, I have a $10K balance on a card with a 0% apr. Once the teaser rate is gone, I won't be able to afford the payments. Fast forward five months later (during which interest and penalties have accrued)... I try to settle with the cc company. Are you saying I'd be lucky to settle for the original debt amount of $10K?

By my guestimate, I would have racked up an additional $1250 of interest @ 30%APR for a total balance of $11,250. Is it unreasonable to expect to settle for ~ $5,000?

Again, thank you very much for reading these questions.

A lot depends on the creditor. I've seen posts on this board of people settling for anywhere between 30% and 80%. Also, I don't know if it would work, but you could try getting the creditor to agree to negotiate a percentage based on your pre-default balance, instead of on the inflated balance. I'm not sure whether they would agree to that, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

Also, don't forget that you aren't just looking at interest. They will also add a late fee every month, and if your balance goes over your limit, they will also add an over limit fee every month. :cry:

Keep in mind also, that if you default on one credit card, all your other creditors will know it from looking at your credit report. They then have the option of either reducing your limits (sometimes to the exact amount you already have as a balance) or closing the accounts altogether.

OR many of them will increase your interest rates, even though you are current on your payments with them.