BoA and Chase experiance

Hi Joe
Normally a creditor charges off a debt if you have not made a payment towards the debt for a continuous period of 120 to 180 days. But if your account is charged off, your score may come down by as much as 100 points. I think that if you cannot pay off the settlement money at a time, you can negotiate with BOA and Chase for a repayment plan to pay it off.

Hi Joe,

On Chase, here is what I did. I called the regular number and then got to the settlement department. I was told at the end of March if I could be patient and wait until April 1st the lady (in the settlement department) would submit a request for me to get 25% approved for both my Wamu and Chase cards. On April 2nd I actually got a call back saying I was approved. Once approved it took 5+ more days to get officially approved and get confirmed faxes of the settlement (they also later mailed the agreements). So make sure you are working with people in the settlement department. It was a pain in the rear end getting the CAs on board with the Chase direct settlement. Oddly enough on one I paid directly through Chase and the other I was told to pay the CA and they would forwrd the $, but on both I received official settlement offers so I'm fine there.

On Bank of America after ignoring them for 4 months I decided to start taking their calls. First I was told that the lowest they could go was 30%. Then I got a call 2 weeks later (pushing 150 days late) and gave my sob story and the lady said....look I'm just going to tell you the truth the real lowest I can go is 25% so I'm just going to tell you that and when you are ready let's get it done. Since I had read a lot of 17% settlements I of course proceeded to fax in my sob story and request a 17% offer. After 5 or 6 phone calls and being stonewalled that 25% was really the lowest they would go I decided to accept it last night and it is done = 25%.

Now my wife has 70k with Bank of Amer. so I could not do the 25% there. I'm still holding out hope the 17% is possible. The last two managers then go to their managers to see if they can go lower than 25% and both came back no. The fact that they asked though tells me it might be possible. When they see that my wifes might charge off maybe they will reconsider. Originally I thought she would have to declare bankruptcy and not myself. Then I started thinking maybe I could save her if the 17% came through for both of us. Now I'm frustrated again because I might just not have the funds to save both of us. That means she'll hang out there as long as possible before declaring just to get some time distances from me. If a miracle happens and I can get 17% ish then maybe we'll both be able to somehow pull this out.

I hope that helps, but at least that is what happened to me.

Ed

Thanks Ed for sharing your story if I could get both of them BoA and chase on 25% I wouldn't even think a sec and say YES but they especially chase is keep saying 40% is lowest we can do so I'm still waiting and calling them once a week to see if they changed their mind. BoA I have scheduled to call me back today to check with me if I can do 35% I told them I need to look if I can do this but I real want them to go down.
BoA is 2 CC for $25k total and chase 4 CC and also $25k total
I want to wait to get better % but on the other hand I do not want them to say it is long enough lets charge off... I hope I get get them to accept my offer of 25%

Im interested in Joe777's settlement with Discover and Amex bec i heard they're the toughest.How many months were you past due?did u settle with CA what was the settlement %. Thanks in advance

acctually these were the easiest for me, both discover and amex pass out my cards to CAs very quickly after I was pass due 30-60 days and I was able to negotiate with them 2 amex CC @ 20% , 4 amex CC @ 25% , 1 disc CC @25% and 1 disc CC @30%
again from my experiance amex and disc were the easiest one settled all before they were 120 days pass due, I still have BoA and Chase to go but making progress and will most likely settle next month, those do not want to go lower then 35% on accounts 120-150 days pass due. My biggest pain is HSBC Beneficial they do not want to talk about settlement and if they will not consider less then 85% which I do not have, I'm running out of ideas how to get them to cooperate it almost sounds like they not real interested because they keep adding late fees and high 28% intrest and do not even call me what else can I do ?

I wonder if HSBC is somehow affiliated with Retail Services--Im in Calif and I have a BestBuy account,The payment stud says Retail Services but I know before it also says HSBC,which I owe abt 5k. Does anyone know?

How'd things go with Citibank? I am current on all my cards but owe 21K to Citibank, 6k to Chase, & 2K to Discover. Because of a job change from me, job loss, and birth of a child from my wife, we can't continue to make the payments on the CCs & the mortgage....What do I do???

NeedtoSettle, Pay your mortgage first. let your CC's lapse and then work on settling. Last year I very easily settled at 20% with BoA directly, on 20K. Made 4 payments. I still have Citi, Discover and Chase to settle on, but waiting on more funds to do so...
oh and about your mortgage, you might check out:
livinglies dot wordpress dot com

how pass due were you with BoA to get 20%, have they been going down with settlement % as time goes by or 20% was their first offer to you? reason I'm asking is I have 2 cards $10k and $14k and I just accepted $10k @ 30% they offered 35% for the other one ($14k) and I told them I do not have enough funds to take it both CC are 120 days pass due so I'm wondering if I wait till 150-180 days will they offer 20%-25% ? same apply for my chase 4 cards (total $25k) they all are 120+ pass due and chase is saying all they can do is 35%

Wow - I don't know how any of you did this! I tried to settle with chase - let them go without payment for almost 5 months - and then all they would offer was 2% INTEREST and the same high balance that had been building since I stopped paying them (it added another 3-4k to the balance in late fees,etc) I finally agreed to that with a monthly payment plan that they said I could call if I couldn't make a payment - I called them once and they immediately sent me to a CA - a nasty one too. Now I am looking at Bankruptcy.

why BK? this is something I was looking into at the begining I was thinking there is no way I can re-pay over $175k debts and saw only BK as option, I actually hired BK attorney and was going through gathering all documents for petition, meanwhile I did lot of research what else I can do and found that perhaps I can go through this with settlements vs. declare BK right away. BK is always on option you can always do this later. Do not agree to any payment plan with 0% interest for 6 months or similar in my personal optinion if your are already in deep sh.... where you cannot pay your min. payments lowering slightly monthly payment and interest will not do any good, do math take your total debts and why they offer you as min payment and see how long it will tak you to re-pay what you owe assuming you will not aquire more debts? they also will rise your monthly payment after 6-12 months to 9.95%
what about if you tell CA you have no money to pay? did you ask for settlement? I do not know your financial situation and if you can gather enough money to pay settlement but here is what I did, I was telling CAs and OCs that I have no money to pay after paying my living expenses that's why I stop paying my minimum payments back in Nov 2008. Now I have 2 options: 1) I can file for BK and in my ch.13 all creditors will get 10% of what I owe over 5 year period (fact that I looked into BK at the very begining help me understand the process and be able to speek about this) option 2) I'm telling them I real like to avoid BK but I have limited funds 20-25% of what I owe, source of this funds is my 401k (which is proteced in BK process) and borrowing from family, I also tell them that I cannot pay one OC/CA 40% because that means I'm taking some funds pool dedicated to other OC/CA so I have to stay within 20-25% avarage in order to repay all, and my option is to repay all or nobody because it does not make sense to pay half of creditors by cashing my 401k and have no mony left and cannot pay other helf than file BK anyways.... that usualy worked for me as they want to get something, I think fact that I'm mentioning BK in the picture helps as well.
Does this make sens?
the only one so far that did not buy this story is HSBC they do not call at all and when I call them they saying they want all or if I qualify for any settlement it will be no less then 80% which is unaceptable for me, they represent about $30k of my $175k if I settle with all but HSBC I guess I'll have to ask them for some sort of hardship 0% plan which I real do not want, since my credit is shut why would I do this, I want to settle all and start over

Joe777, for your Amex settlements did you talk to NCO and other CA's over the phone or do it all by mail?

Thanks Joe. I just don't get WHY the attorneys I've approached can't give me any sane advice. It's all "up to me" what I want to do. I have no freakin' clue. Other than I do NOT want to get sued and have my measly bank acct frozen or something. The last atty I talked to - the minute I said "what about ch 13?" said - "Oh OK that's what you want to do then. OK here's another name." I didn't say I wanted or didn't want it I just asked about it and they couldn't get me out the door fast enough. BTW I am also suspicious of why so few handle ch 13. Are they really working for the credit cards? You have to wonder. Don't they get a percentage of what they can get me to pay - or is someone else the "trustee"? Seriously I don't know what is the "best" thing to do. It's just been my experience, so far, that Chase would not cut me one inch of slack and immediately sent me to the "Tony Soprano Collection Agency" - that gives me NO confidence in being able to settle anything without declaring BK. Do you think it's because they believe I actually am sitting on bags of money? If you have any more advice I appreciate it.

As for my original question. I am self employed. With the way things have been going - taking last 6 mos of income - it will be dropping steadily the longer I wait to do the formula. Also, I owe $4k in taxes for last year due to not making any estimated payments. So, if I promised $1k to the IRS a month, that's going to effect my "means" formula? Right? Why doesn't an attorney address these issues? I don't get it. Thanks.

as far question how I communicated with NCO and other CA re: my amex account, I talk to them over the phone first when verbally I had confirmation they want to settle these accounts on % was acceptable to me I ask them to send me this in writing, in NCO case I got it via fax and other CA mail I then send them letter via certified mail basicaly saying that I received and accepted their settlement offer listing account number I'm refering to and amounts we agreed on and will be paying them by also saying that if they changed their minds and do not agree with these terms they requeired to explain in writing within 14 days than I wait 14 days nothing came my way so I cut cashier check and mail again certified mail along with copy of their settlement offer letter.
Just make sure your due date is more in advance then 14 days you asking them to respond

To answer the other question about BK and attorneys, ch.13 is more complicated then ch.7 this should explain why few does it, also I think in ch.13 repayment plan then are required to represent you thru entire time which means you need to change something in the plan in 2nd year you need to contact same attorney which I think some of them they do not want to bother dealing with, are there any other legal/license implication who can do ch.7 vs ch.13 I'm not sure

ch.13 is a good and bad think, good because you can keep most or all your stuff like home and cars, bad because you are on "watch" for 5 years, some people say once you enter ch.13 plan and pay on time it is going on auto pilot and no one will look if your financial situation will change and base on this increase your plan payment. Maybe that's true but my biggest concern was that I get relatively large bonus at the end of the year clost to 20% ($35k) of my current debt and I was afraid I will endup giving it up every year and pay nt only 100% of my debt but still have a BK on my record so how good of a deal is that pay all back and have BK on record?
so I decided to do settlement

BK also (although it is inlegal) prevent you from getting job in the future, I worked serveral years ago for a company that as part of their background check was checking applicants record for BK and if you had one you did not get the job but you were not told it was because of the BK, this would be considered inlegal but they did needless to say it was nowhere in writing as policy

talk to CA because it went to CA doesn't mean it is bad, keep in mind many time you will be talking to people in India, it is cheaper labor and some creditors do not want to wast their highly paid people doing calls to debetors, at least this is how I see this. It is kind of funny when you talking to these CAs which are clearly located in India and they intruduce themselves as Joe Smith or to Johnson, they never seen someone name Tom or Joe :)