Offering the CA amount for their costs on SOL debt.

I will tell you now, that I would not pay a dime on an expired debt. First and foremost, they need to validate the debt that they say you owe. Send them a letter of validation, which places the burden of proof on them, and they can not report you to any of the three credit bureaus if they have not legally validated the debt. If they have reported you to the credit bureaus, then you need to contact the original creditor, and tell them to remove the debt from the report, since proper validation has not been made by them or the collection companies who bought it.

Also, if these collectors are harrassing you, send them a cease and desist letter, which legally binds them to not contact you, unless they are validating the debt. You can get all letters that you need at my site.

Mr Lemons is right. Also, if you pay them so much as a dime, they'll come after you for the whole amount. It also won't do your credit any good.

Original poster

A concern I have is that the CA won't be able to validate and will sell the alleged file, and the whole process will repeat for possibly years or decades.

It does not matter how many times it is sold, you pay nothing. No validation means all reported debts at credit bureaus must be removed.

Thanks for posting these useful information. Keep them coming