Collect Amercica-Office of Scott Lowery-need the best advice
Date: Tue, 02/20/2007 - 17:39
They called me today, so of course i got nervous, I called back. My "account representative" had left already so i spoke to someone else on her behalf. She was actually very nice and helpful with my questions. She said that they hadnt recieved payments from november and the rep wanted follow up and secure a payment.
The payments have been coming out of my account for the past couple of months but 1291 is actually accurate so I didnt understand that. But she said if i was able to I could settle for less at 60% which means i would have to only pay 775 (which im good for). So i asked the questions, how would this look on my credit report, she said settle for less. I asked her for a letter,
she said the first thing she had to do was email the corporate office to OK the offer, but she said they probably would. Then she could either fax me the agreement or even e-mail it to me. once I get the settlement letter, then i have up to one month to give them the money. She mentioned something about a post dated check, Im not sure what that means. She said my account rep would call me tomorrow to follow up and ask me some questions about my income and what i spend on utilities and such. I asked why i had to answer these questions. She said they needed to make sure that i couldnt afford to pay more. she said someone today made 4900 a month and was trying to settle his account for a lot lower then he should. so i said ok i'll speak with this person tomorrow.
My questions are:
is a fax or email good enough to show that is our agreement in case it comes back to haunt me?
Is is wrong for them to ask questions about my income and such? she said they cant garnish my wages or anything like that, they need to know if its a fair amount.
what does post dated check mean?
this seems to good to be true, i have heard horror stories about this law firm. She was nice and answered all my questions and didnt inflate my debt and offered to settle right away and send me the offer letter. I would love to get this one debt over with and done especially since this is only one of two debts I have with collections. (i have other debts there being worked out with the original creditiors)
I dont want to make any mistakes so if anyone can answered my questions and help me to do this right way to protect myself i would most appreciate it![quote][/quote]
A post-dated check is when you secure a payment with them upfron
A post-dated check is when you secure a payment with them upfront and they supposedly won't withdraw the money from your account until the specified date. You have to give them your banking info for a post-dated check. I've never dealt with this collection agency, but I have had a problem in the past when a company wasn't supposed to withdraw funds until a certain date, but they did it sooner, causing me to bounce other checks from here to China. I wouldn't advise the post-dated payment.
Do not give them your checking account information, tell them yo
Do not give them your checking account information, tell them you will pay with a money order. I am dealing with them now and they haven't validated my debt. They are one of the worst collection agencies in the country. They have been sued on more than one occassion. Be careful if my best advice to you. I would also make them mail the letter as a follow up.
thanks for the advice,mishele. i was able to work out a sett
thanks for the advice,mishele.
i was able to work out a settlement with them, they even sent me the settlement letter via e-mail so now i will hold on to that forever. It included my original creditor info and account number plus it states once payment is received they will update my credit report as saying paid in full. luckily they didn't demand a check, I sent them a money order by overnight mail and i have a tracking number so i can confirm when they received it. although, stupid me,i didn't know that i cant track express mail via the website so I wont be able to print out the delivery confirmation. oh well, i saved all of my postal sending info anyway.
When the payment is received (which should be tomorrow by noon), they told me i will receive a letter via e-mail stating that this is paid. I didnt even have to demand this, they said they would do this. so we'll see how tomorrow goes, hopefully they'll get it,be happy and leave me alone forever. if not, at least i have a settlement letter, money order receipt and mailing receipts as some sort of proof if i have to fight them, so im crossing my fingers this ends well, :roll: