Before trying to negotiate settlement with B of A, Chase and Citi

I am glad you decided to post here. You should get great answers to your questions.

Although every creditor is different, balance transfers and cash advances newer than 6 months are usually exempt from negotiation. Creditors may sway chop 10 - 15% off the balance but will not go much further.

Do you have balance transfers and/or cash advances on each card? Or just one?

All Creditors have different guidelines for which debt goes to collections and when.

You may want to speak with a professional debt settlement comapny before entering in any agreement with these companies. Yes, the DS company will have fees however they do not charge any up front fees (beware of any that do) and they allow for a repayment schedule. Typically your current minimum payments are cut in half and the debt will be eliminated between 1 - 4 years.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Good Luck!

You definately should try a debt settlement co. They will get you better terms than you can get yourself. I tried it myself and all I got was frustrated. I signed on with freestar financial and am very happy I did.

FYI - "no up front fees" depends upon your definition of up front, at least in my mind. Let's assume there fee is $1000. If they insist on their $1000 as the first payment, that is obivous an up front fee. However, if they take a portion of your monthly and collect their $1000, before you have enough funds to settle an account, I consider that up front as well. They got their fee without doing anything, didn't they. Most DS's operate that way.

They will work with you on the Hardship. They reduced my payment more than 1/2 and my interest rate to 6.5 for 5 years fixed. Then my account will be closed.

I posted about the age of the debt yesterday or the day before, so I'm curious to see what the responses are here as well. From the responses and my research, it seems like you are going to have a tough time negotiating on debts that are three months old. Mine are in the six to eight month range on the newest few and I'm concerned that they are less than a year. What I've heard is they are more likely to sue and claim your charges were fraudulent, if the debt is not old. But I'm just starting to go delinquent myself, so maybe someone more experienced can opine.

Is there anyway to settle your CC debt without closing the account or getting a hit on your credit report?

I want to try to negotiate a settlement with my CC companies, but I want to keep the cards, I am a long time card holder, and I really don't want to take a hit on my credit reports.

thanks

I'm still new to all this, but SouthSideK, you want your cake and to eat it too. Everything is negotiable, but I don't think you will get either if you settle your debt.

Basically, you are saying you can't afford to pay your debt, but you want these companies to extend you more credit at the same time as charging off a portion of your current balance. No credible lender will do that. Right now lenders are closing accounts and decreasing credit lines on GOOD, PAYING customers. So I think keeping a credit line with these CC companies is extremely unrealistic given what's happening in the market.

As far as a credit hit, unless you negotiate something with each lender at the time of settlement, your credit score will take a hit. I've been reading that this is something that is negotiated, but if you are settling a large debt at a significant discount most creditors won't likely agree to report you to the agencies as current or say that you PIF without diclosing a settlement. But settlements aren't looked as as negatively as a BK, so your score would rebound faster theoretically.