my debt story

I owned a small limo company in the Chicago area. Business was decent, but overhead was high. Many clients (mostly large corporations) paid by direct billing. I would use credit cards to float me by the rough areas and pay expenses (eg, gasoline) until the clients paid. I was fine until clients took longer + longer to pay. Of course I still had to pay for gas, car repairs, etc out of my own company pocket. (Probably those clients were experiencing the same problems I was.) At one time one client owed $27,000. When there was a slowdown, my credit cards became maxed out and I got further + further behind. Then came 9-11-01. As there were no flights allowed for awhile, people stopped going to the airport. Collectors started calling and I would say he's not here, he's on the street, etc.
One day I called in with a payment and the collector offered a settlement of 40%, which I later took, and later settled all my debts, averaging 42%.