Hello,
Well, I did it again, I fell into the payday loan trap after getting myself out. The last time, I had several illegal loans, that I sent C&D letters to, and was able to negotiate paying just the principal back on them.
Ran into several medical issues a few months ago, and took out 3 payday loans, 2 of which are installments (Ace Cash Express & EMoneyUSA). The other is Check N Go. I live in Texas, and all 3 are legal here.
Check N Go has a balace of $371 that I am paying in full this friday, so that one will be gone.
Ace Cash Express was for $2000, payments of $474 every 2 weeks for 8 payments. I've made one payment (on 10/17).
EMoneyUSA was for $1200, payments of $228 every 2 weeks for 12 payments. I've made 2 payments.
Yesterday, after reviewing my bills spreadsheet and the upcoming medical bills I have to get paid and other things that are going on, I realized I am going to get myself in a payday loan cycle again if I don't take control of these 2. That is $702 every 2 weeks going out to pay these. I know I did this to myself, but I just can't afford that much every 2 weeks.
So I called & emailed both companies yesterday to revoke my ACH agreement (since both of my loan documents say I can do that and mail payments in instead). I received confirming emails back from both companies that my ACH authorization had been cancelled. ACE automatically put me into collections, and EMoney is willing to accept money orders every 2 weeks for payment.
I don't think I can negotiate a lower payment/longer terms with EMoney. I've sent an email request to ACE, but not sure what they will do. I received a call early this morning and they wanted to know if I would be taking care of my $3253 balance today. Um, no. I told her I wanted to continue paying every 2 weeks, I just had needed to cancel by ACH authorization due to some issues with unauthorized activity at my bank. She said fine, and divided that amount over the remaining 7 payments, as it had already been.
I know the advice is to close your bank account, and I have done that before. I did it last year when I had all of the illegal ones that I emailed after I closed my account. However, I have a payment plan with the IRS that will be done in 2015. When I closed my checking account in 2013 and opened a new one, it was a ridiculous mess with the IRS to get my new banking info to them for the ACH payment, and they almost cancelled my payment plan over it. I do not want to go through that mess again (took 4 months to clear it up, and I mailed my payments in via certified mail and that's the only reason I was able to get them to not cancel my payment plan!). I feel that my account will be OK with having both legal companies tell me they have revoked my ACH authorization. I don't think they will try to take anything out.
My concern now is how to negotiate lower payments with them, so I can more easily afford to pay off my balances. Any suggestions?