UCB/Sears account sent to citibank

First of all, did UCB validate the debt in writing? You know the collectors are required to complete this legal formality before attempting collections. If no information has been given to you in writing, send a debt validation letter from your side and cover your grounds legally.

If you have received the details in writing, you have to show some partial payments to desist them from taking actions against you. Even if the matter reaches the court, the judge will see how much you have paid so far. If you can assure small payments regularly, decisions will go in favor of you. If a counselor can help you in doing the negotiations with the collectors, things will surely be put under control.

I am going to go through my paperwork tonight and see if I received anthing from them. Which I don't think I have because I keep a spreadsheet of all my creditors information and I update the address as they move to collections and who currently has the account and the last information I have is with Citibank. She also said I made a verbal agreement two months ago to clear up the account, which I defiantly know I didn't do because I didn't have the money then and I don't have the money now.

So if I send payments to citibank, will they post them even though my account is collections. Do they inform the collection agency they have received payments.

I'm going to start sending payments from tomorrows paycheck and then talk to my credit counselor to see what my options are.

Citibank will accept payments if they have hired the collection agency. They refuse accepting payments after the accounts are sold off. If you are able to make payments directly to Citibank, they will pull the file back from the collections.

UCB people are jackasses. I'm dealing with them right now with some medical bills.

They HAVE to validate the debt. Send them a validation request certified mail. The good thing about them is they WILL send you the information. I had to bother them on the telephone too.

And when I say bother, I mean I called them twice a day and bothered them.

Also, you can't back down from these people. don't let them get to you. IT's their job to collect the money. It just is. But if you stand up to them, and let them know how it's going to be, (that they will need to validate and then you will set up payment arrangements) they will eventually comply.

Okay, I have verfied with Sears/Citibank that this company does indeed have the account to collect on. I also received a letter in the mail. But I still don't have the funds to pay in full right now and they have stated they won't accept any proposals for payment arrangements.

So I'm just going to start sending payments on my own. Should I send a Money order so they feel better about accepting the payment and that it's immediate funds...or should I send a personal check so I can watch and keep track to see if they cash it or not to accept payment.

Send the payments with any mode you are comfortable with. Be aware that the receipts will count towards your responsibility of paying the debts. Even if they are unwilling to accept your proposals, they know that if they don't accept payments from you, the debt might go out of the SOL period and hence they will lose hold of legal collections. Stick to your moves.

Important questions..

Is this a charged off debt? Since my agency deals with Citi Bank precharge off I probably know a few things you might not know.

Yes, citi bank will accept proposals from debt management companies, but they don't have to. There is nothing that requires them to do so. They have been known to not accept them. It will just depend on what the proposal is and how much you are in default.

If it isn't charged off you will still be recieving late and intrest fee's. Check your monthly statements and it should verify information. This is an intest bearing account and by law Sears must inform you monthly when you are charged anyhting. They can and will chage you intrest and late fee's until it charges off and depending on the state or contract agreement you might still recieve intrest until it falls off of your credit report or paid.

The Total past due is somehting important. You need to get that paid as quickly as possibly. When it's caught up you won't recieve anymore late fee's but you will still be responsible for the intrest. AFTER getting the Total Due caught up you must make your payments on or before the due date or you will begin to recieve late fee's again.

You can still make payments at Sears stores or mail them in (to sears) as long as this account is not chaged off. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't.

You will still recieve calls from collections agencies until this matter is taken care of in full if citibank rejects the proposal from the debt management company. An accepted proposal is an extremely important piece of paper and you need to make sure that you have one from each creditor or else you will have to make arrangements to take care of that matter on your own.


Another thing, collections agencies don't have a radar to zero in on people who are having hard times. Your creditors do. They give you a certain amount of time to come good on the account or THEY send your account to collections agencies.

Since citi bank is over the account now it is also important to not let this account charge off or you go into what collectors call "universal default". Meaning that if you have any other accounts citi bank is over (it will say on your credit report) it could (could not guarenteed) to call in all your citi bank accounts to be paid and closwed immediatly.

Unfortuantly, this account is charged off and I haven't seen the balance go up any. I am sending in payments to the collection agency and hopefully this will make them ease up a little bit, because I can't afford to pay them off in full.

Since it is charged off ask the company if they report paid in full if you settle. Many agencies do that now as an incentive to get it paid.

620-664-5298