Ok.So now I am 100 days late with FIA...

FIA is the internal collections department for BOA. MBNA was bought out by BOA a few years back, so yes, they are the same.

BOA is generally pretty good to work with regarding settlements. How much can you afford? I would call them up and make them an offer. Low-ball your offer so if they counter, you can haggle your way to an affordable settlement.

Generally, you get your best settlement offers right before charge off, usually 180 days late. If they don't bite right away, just wait them out. You'll likely need at least $15K to settle both of these cards. Is that doable for you?

It did not seem to matter for me whether I talked with them or not. I got 30% settlement with fia over 3 payments after about 150 days and before charge off. Just wait.

Thank you both for your input. I wonder if they will let me discuss them both at the same time even though one is less late than the other by about 30 days or so. Also, I have not defaulted on the three other cards I have (two Chase and one Discover) since they are still within my budget and I am still able to make their min payments..dont know for how long that is going to last.

Is it in my best interests (not FICO wise) in dealing with BOA/FIA to stop making those payments on time? Or do you think that they will deal fairly with me despite me paying the other smaller creditors on time?

What do you think I should do. The FIA and BOA mins were so high that I can no longer pay everything and I had to choose what to do. Is that some type of deal breaker.

Dan do you think that I ought to call them now and start some talks BEFORE this year is over as they may have some type of deals being handed out..??

It never hurts to ask. They may be trying to sew up some settlements before year end. However, they normally give you 90 days to pay the settlement (generally 1 payment "now" and 3 more over a 90 day period for the balance). So, your settlement won't have any effect on your 2010 taxes. If you can keep making payments on your other cards, go ahead and make them. I doubt it would have any effect on your settlement efforts. There's no harm in talking to them about both accounts. If you were going for a hardship plan, it might but it shouldn't with settlement. After these two are settled, you can work on the others one at a time as settlement money becomes available to you.

bofa did not mention settlement to use until just before 180 days was up. just after 150 days they brought up possible settlement & first offer was 35% and i did not make any sort of counter to them. 2 weeks later (which was 2 weeks before charge off ) the offer went to 25% without any effort on my part. i told them i needed to crunch numbers and see if we would be able to do that over 4 payments. so just sit tight, and chances are, if they mention settlement first, you may get a better offer without wearing yourself out.. it also depends on who your sr account manager is too.. some have real attitudes...

Hi Helpme,

You should be able to combine both accounts come settlement time for the more delinquent account.

You may indeed find BofA takes issue with the fact that you are current with other credit card payments, but not paying them. How much of an issue and whether it can be explained away successfully while still optimizing your savings results may depend on how much lower your account balances are with the current accounts as compared to the BofA balances. Small balances with smaller more manageable monthly payments can often be successfully taken out of consideration. Larger balances... not so much. In fact, some creditors use criteria such as you have outlined as a measure to drop your account in to the more aggressive collection bucket (BofA is not one of those at this time - though there may be other factors you fit for them to do so).

You should not hit this wall on the account originally with MBNA. You could use a strategy to approach these accounts separately.

Having said all of this, you may not experience a hitch at all. Things may progress exactly as they did for generallee. I just want to provide awareness that they may not and why and to point out you could mitigate the potential by considering the following:

Stop paying Chase and Discover 2 months prior to settlement time with BofA. These accounts will show 30 days late to BofA/FIA recovery specialist at settlement time. If they raise the objection that you were paying the other revolving accounts, you can respond that you are no longer able to do so as of a couple months ago and that you were hopeful your finances were to turn around for the better, but they have only deteriorated further.

When you receive settlement documentation from BofA and have remitted either lump sum or first payment for the 90-ish day settlement terms, contact Chase and Discover and ask about your ability to get caught up with them and whether they have a plan available to re-age the accounts where after you get current and make 3-6 timely payments they remove the 30 and 60 late pays from your credit report. You must try to do so before these accounts hit the 90 day delinquency of 3rd zero billing mark, as passing this time frame is often when the account is closed by credit grantor and where re-aging in the true sense of the term is no longer available (creditors can close accounts prior to the 90 day mark using other internal criteria).

You run the risk of interest rate increases on Chase and Discover by doing this. They may/may not be willing to revert back to the interest rate they were charging before you fell behind.

You will have late pay fines of as much as 40.00 assessed that are often removed in the re-aging program.

Calculate what this means to you in real dollars over the life of your balances and weigh what you will save with BofA settlements.

Best of Success to you!

Mileage may vary

yep, bofa does really get an attitude if they see you are paying everything else and not them- believe me, i have went ballistic on them several times about that.. but everything is working out now to our advantage..my only quam with them now is that they will tell you when working settlements "most of our customers stop paying their mortgages, car payments & all other bills to pay their settlements".. i am NOT missing my mortgage pay or car pay to pay credit cards- never have, never will.. i do not want to be in a delima with mortgage and car and risk loosing them. i had mortgage before any of these cards, it comes first.. bofa has really stressed me out about such..

Sorry, I missed your question. Yes, they will combine them. And you are just a little early still. Hang in there and it will all fall into place soon. I don't believe that the year end will make a difference. Good Luck. dtm