Newbie flush with initial success but has questions

1. Your account status is likely to be updated as "Paid as Settled" or "Paid as Agreed" after settlement.

2. You'll have to contact your creditors and find out whether or not you can qualify for hardship program. If you don't qualify for it, then it is better to settle the debts with your creditor.

3. Contact Chase and ask them if the account has been assigned to the CA. If the account has not been assigned to the CA, then settle the debt with Chase directly.

Hi,

It is usually not the case when you make settlement that you will get a "paid in full" update however much you negotiate. As you have mentioned, a "paid as settled" status is any day better than bankruptcy. In case you would have filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, it would have stayed on for 7 years from the date of filing.

As for the CA which has contacted you, it is best that you give Chase a call and ask them whether they have forwarded your account to a CA. If Chase answers in the affirmative then ask them to remove their collection record as your same debt will then be listed twice once the CA reports it too.

Hope these advice will help you :smile:

First of all, congratulations on your settlement -- I remember in march when I did my first settlement with Best Buy -- I was so nervous on the phone with them -- (but so was the person I was talking too -- ) she said thank you after we had completed the settlement --

Always be nice to the reps on the phone -- that will get you much further than being nasty -- remember this is just their job -- it doesn't hurt to say that to them either, it helps the conversation along --

I don't have anything that says paid in full -- all say settled -- but I feel the same way -- better than bankruptcy --

keep going -- you're doing great :):D

Can you confirm that you already got THD/Citibank down to 30%? If so, would you mind sharing more details - how much you owe, how long since you paid. I've been struggling with them for months. They offered 50% lump sum (which I didn't have), then sent me to an attorney at only 60 days. I've finally agreed to a 52% settlement over 12 months with Zakheim, based on advice I got from this community that I couldn't do better and that Zakheim would sue.

Congratulations on the BOA, that is encouraging since I have two with similar bals coming up.

FYI...

I settled with Sears/Citi for 40% and they seemed to be the most sympathethetic in an honest way, not like they were just patronizing.

Good luck with Capital One, very few have had luck, others, including me, are going nowhere fast.

First, thank you all for the information and encouragement. I actually almost felt a little better about myself after that first settlement. Once I get all of the settlements lined up then I will really feel good about things.

As far as Home Depot through Citibank, here is the deal. They sent me a settlement offer letter. If I paid lump sum, they were prepared to go actually under 30% and closer to 20%, but I called 2 days after it expired. I am going to try again and see if I can get them to back down, but that one is on the back burner until I get some traction with USAA and Disco.

To clarify on Home Depot, I am 124 days since last payment and owe around $3.6k. I had a very long good payment history with them until April.

So I called USAA yesterday and started with their collections people. When I mentioned settlement they transferred me to the Member Relations Department. I explained my situation and told the pleasant rep I wanted to settle. She told me if I settled I would lose all ties to USAA banking (not insurance which is great since they are wonderful in that regard) but I would keep my savings and checking accounts (that seemed odd to me but ok). She started off with an offer of 100% which I declined. I told her since they are the largest unsecured creditor ($21.5k out of $86.5k), I can offer no more than 25% and that settlement of this account is the linchpin to avoiding BR. She told me she has no authority to accept such an offer and that it would have to be escalated for review internally and that can take 7-14 days but to call back in a week. She also told me if I settle with a single lump sum payment then it has to be paid within 15 days of their acceptance or up to 70 days if made in 3 installments.
If anyone has settled with USAA before, is this a normal procedure? I was hoping for a quicker decision since I have to get a handle on all of these creditors as soon as possible to avoid BR.

Well, I guess no one active here has any info on USAA so I will wait and see what they say.

That aside, I called Chase today. They told me the account is with a CA called Valentine & Kebartas for collection but that Chase still owns it. So the Chase rep transferred me to the CA. Long story short, their basement settlement was 30%. That is not great compared to what others around here have worked out directly with Chase but I think considering it go south pretty quick with a suit, this is reasonable.

Next on my list was Citibank/Sears. I proposed the 20% offer. The rep was only prepared to offer 55% so he has to submit my offer for approval. The rep said it would take up to 48 hours for a decision. If they bite on the 20% offer, I will try to use that as leverage with Citibank on the HD card.
Best Buy/HSBC, Discover and Capital One are still to come....stay tuned.

I called back Citibank on my Home Depot to try again to get a lower number. I was told they wrote it off and sent it to a CA called ACB American. I spoke with Citi's recovery dept. to confirm whether the debt was sold or just assigned for collection. The nice rep told me it was just assigned for collection. So I called ACB American. I happened upon a very nice rep there (which may or may not be unusual---I don't know). I told her my situation. She offered 50%. I countered with the written offer I had received from Citi previously. She is taking it back to Citi and will let me know what they have to say.

The best news of the day was Discover Card and I will update this post as soon as I have the written offer in hand from Disco.

Thanks to all who have supported me here publicly and privately via messages. :D

congratulations on your settlements!! you are doing awesome!!

your not a newbie anymore --- keep it up!!:hug:

Update on Citi/Sears. As I said above, the rep offered 55% and I countered with 20%. Well, my offer was reviewed, rejected and countered. They will only go down to 40%. They offered 3 monthly payments to complete the settlement amount.

Considering I'm in the midst of dealing with numerous settlements and trying like mad to avoid bankruptcy and/or civil lawsuits on the debt, I don't have the luxury of trying to wait them out. I just have to re-check my numbers to see if this can work. Thankfully I have until the 8th (next payment due date on account) to decide.

A lot of time has passed since I last updated everyone here. I wanted to wait because a paranoid suspicion crept into my mind that perhaps creditors would be reading these boards (laughable I know).

Anyway, I accepted the last settlement offer yesterday and it was with USAA. It was the most awkward settlement negotiation I have ever been through. Started at 25%, they came back with 57%, I went up to 30%, they came back at 50%, I moved to 34%, they went back to 57%(!?!?!?!). I stopped at 34% because I felt they were drawing it out to see how high I would go. It all came down to last evening. The card was scheduled to charge off at 6pm. It was a tense day for the most part. I have been making lots of calls with USAA over the past 4-5 weeks trying to get this worked out. I was very concerned they were not going to budge off the 50% mark (I would not be able to do that given the balance). I was playing a game of chicken with big consequences if I lost.

A director reviewed the account and they called me at 5:40 p.m. with an offer of 40%. I was so relieved! I made the first payment (had to be the largest) over the phone and now have 75 days to make the final 2 payments. The best news out of it was that the rep informed me USAA no longer requires you to sever your relationship with USAA if you settle a CC. This was great because I not only have a car loan with them, but auto and home owners insurance.

There were a few others I have failed to update you on.

-I took the Sears offer (that was sad because that was my oldest credit account).
-Best Buy (HSBC) settled at $2300 on a $8.1k balance.
-The Sams Club with NCO would only settle at 59%. That was okay because the balance was so low.
-The best news was with Discover Card. I know there have been many posts on here about how unwilling they are generally to settle. I was very fortunate. I must have lucked out with a good CSR as I was able to get them to settle with me for 30%!!!!!!!!!!! I was so pleased with that one but had to keep it close to the vest so to speak, until I paid it and received the final letter from them.

From the best to the worst: I settled with Capital One at 69% and have 3 months to pay it off (already made first payment). This is one I would definitely say it pays to speak with different reps. I had them at the percentage but they were insisting upon only 2 payments. I got off the phone with them and about 10 minutes later I had another call (think it was a robo call). The rep so nice and very sympathetic (she went through the same thing I did) and she told me they would do 3 payments. Yeah, I took that.

My end result is an average settlement percentage of 35.43%. I think this is pretty decent. If I had started on this sooner I think this number would have come down a bit more.

There is also quite a bit of chance in this whole process. I think with some it helped I settle very close to the charge off date (USAA being the prime example). Then on the other hand, I had relative success in dealing with a collection agent (debt never left creditor) by dealing with them immediately after I was notified.

Had not Bank of America been so willing to work me with at first, this would not have happened. I had hoped USAA (as being largest creditor) would have settled sooner (they were the last one). I didn't realize how much of a risky spot I had put myself into by getting the other smaller ones settled first. Had USAA held to their position, all of the money paid out in settlements would have been for naught.

I certainly had to make a lot of sacrifices to make this happen. Not only have we changed our lifestyle and attitude (ultimately for the better), I have fallen behind one (1) month on my mortgage payment but that was necessary to get enough cash together to cover the settlements. That may even actually turn out to be a blessing. I called my mortgage company before the end of the grace period and told them the payment would be late. They were very understanding and let me know about a couple of options to deal with the issue. I am working with them on one of the options to lower my interest rate (not a refinance b/c I would not qualify given my awful credit score). In the meantime, I made the mortgage payment last Friday so I didn???t get the 30 day late reported on my score. Speaking of credit score???

My credit is completely trashed. With the 2 cards that were charged off and the settlements combined with the 6 months of late payments, the number is pretty pathetic. I am fine with that. The bankruptcy probably would have made it worse and I was informed by a super nice rep at Bank of America that I should definitely file a ???Consumer Statement??? on my credit reports to explain why I got into this position and why I settled the accounts.

At the end of the day. I have 2 cars in fairly decent shape (1 paid off and the other newer one with a reasonable monthly payment), a roof over my head and quite a bit of peace of mind.

I am so relieved to be done with the constant calls and worries about how it would turn out (sued, bankruptcy, etc.). I had such a joyful time trick or treating with my kids last night. I still have two (2) more months of payments to Best Buy, Capital One, Sears and USAA, but this should be a very joyful (but financially restrained!!!) Christmas.

I want to thank everyone who has posted here---it not only provided me with insight on what can be done but gave me the courage to get it done for myself.

Thanks for sharing your success!

Great job on your settlements!!! that discover was great!!! I had to do 50 percent -- 30 is awesome with them!!

I still have a few cards --- chase, amex and barclays and ge (old navy) --
we'll see how it goes ---


congratulations!!

Congratulations on your settlements. I can't tell you how amazing you are going to feel in the coming months. Getting credit card debt off your back is the most freeing thing in the world. We settled our cards last December into January and it feels like that mess was all years and years ago. I am so happy to be living a better, more financially secure life. Enjoy it and good job.

I am feeling much better already.

The final payments to BoA came out at the end of October.
I just got off the phone with Cap 1 to make the 2nd of 3 scheduled monthly payments on the settlement.
I paid Best Buy HSBC yesterday the 2nd of 3 payments.
The 2nd of 3 payments on the Citi Sears comes out on the 10th.
I still have 2 more payments with USAA to make within 75 days of October 31st. They are pretty big but definitely better than the alternative.
I am flat broke right now wondering how I will make the ends meet to my next pay but yet I feel so good knowing I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I guess now what I look forward to watching is how my credit score improves in the years to come. I still have the car loan with USAA and that has never been late so that should help improve my score as time passes.
I am not concerned about that score for obtaining new credit (I will probably get a secured VISA card or something like that to have in reserve), but more so for insurance rating and job applications. I would be curious to find out what others have experienced with their credit score post-settlement.

Good job! I'm at the beginning of this process so it's nice to see someone have some success. I do have a question though about one of your statements:

Had not Bank of America been so willing to work me with at first, this would not have happened. I had hoped USAA (as being largest creditor) would have settled sooner (they were the last one). I didn't realize how much of a risky spot I had put myself into by getting the other smaller ones settled first. Had USAA held to their position, all of the money paid out in settlements would have been for naught.

Is it risky to get one settlement before another? Right now we have an offer from BofA for 40% that I'm still trying to negotiate down, but US Bank won't settle with us until February. Is it important to get them settled at the same time? Thanks for any advice and again, congrats!

great job with all your settlements -- I just got an email for an offer for a card from Orchard bank -- I am not looking to get into any new cards at all -- i want to live cash life --- not the credit life that got me into this ---

but -- just to let you know -- I still have 5 cards to finish off with but I am almost done -- I will probably do the rest next year in january since I don't want to get hit up with too many 1099's -- otherwise my next problem will be the IRS --

again -- congrats :) :p

congrats and great job !!!
but a reminder, be prepared for your tax return at the first of the year, keep all your documents together, because any settlement that reduced over $600 is reported to the irs and is taxable, unless you can prove insolvency at the time of each settlement...
i have a mound of paperwork myself already done to make the tax prep person's life a little bit easier doing my paperwork.. i just hate to see what they charge me for doing the forms... i plan to contact one within the next month, take my mound of paperwork and let them see if what i have done is accurate. but really cant go any further til january when the 1099's start rolling in...