Ucb

Kaylee, If the debt is valid and if they have the right to settle it then I personally believe check by phone is fine. I did that with several of mine. You know the process to be sure it is valid so protect yourself and get the settlement agreement in writing by fax first. Perhaps a call to the original creditor to be sure they have assigned it for settlement/collection is in order if you do not want to do the whole validation. I have found that validation kills settlements so I am not a big believer in the whole nine yards....just enough so I am comfortable that my money will be applied to the settlement. But it is your money so I would not blame you for validating.

Dan,
We did the settlement (verbally) then I asked them to mail or fax it first and they say they want my check over the phone. I am not comfortable until I see something in writing but I did call Citi and it is ucb but then again if you google them it is bad stuff.
google 'ucb collections'.....horror stories!
Will keep you posted!

I wouldn't give them a penny without having that agreement in writing first. Once you have the agreement, I wouldn't worry about a check over the phone payment. If you're that worried, you send a cashier's check or money order or even get a prepaid credit card and pay them that way. But don't pay anything until you have it in writing.

I did a settlement with them back in January, had the settlement agreement faxed over within a day or so. The bal was 22k and we worked it for 6K in 4 payments of 1500 or approx 28%. I believe we set up the scheduled payments over the phone approx 3 weeks out for the first payment and had the settlement agreement within a week...No problems.

This is my settlement progression thread and I am updating it for my own records mostly but I also will cross post this on my UCB thread because it is kinda different with regards to settling.
I posted about my 2 Citi accounts and settling and that one had gone to UCB and they were nasty and I ended up settling at 35% cause it was upsetting me.
Well, in the end I settled it for 27%!!!
What happened was on the day I wrote this thread (Aug. 2nd I think) we haggled and I got them to 35% and then they wanted a check on the phone and would not send me the settlement offer first so I said 'no' I won't give you a check, I will only send cashier's check and want the offer in writing. He said he would talk to his supervisor and call me back the following day. We even talked about how I might be with my co-workers and could not talk and so he went ahead and gave me their mailing address, said he would leave go ahead voice mail, all stuff that indicated it was a done deal. Well, he never called me back and after a few days I was really worrying, playing over the conversation in my head, did I get something wrong, all that....
He called back a week later and left a message that I could tell he had dropped the ball, must not have documented something and was mixed up. So when I called back he asked me what I could settle for (like we had not already discussed this) and I said well, now I settled another one so I only have $5000(instead of $7500) left for you. He put me on with his supervisor who did not even argue, he just said let me submit it and he said he would call in 2 days, well it was a week but he sent settlement letter and that was that. I was very shocked and honestly still am not sure what happened but I do know one thing from dealing with them and that is they really push this end of month thing and 'it must be done by this day or you will lose it' but then if you just ignore them once that day passes the offer is better instead of off the table as they try to make you believe.
I even post dated the check for the 27th. I waited until it was a done deal to post this because it was so bizarre I didn't want to jinx it.
Kaylee