Settlement with Citibank

I had 11,000 debt with citiband in October and was not able to keep up with the payments of 560 per month. I stopped paying it. They were nice about it but only offered to have me make smaller payments at high interest. I was trying to get to 90-120 days past due to get a settlement offer which was at their advice in the first place.

When the 90 day mark came, I merely mentioned I would like to eventually settle and the rep told me that she needed to get info from me for the simple fact of me mentioning a settlement. I told her I was in no position to come up with the money now but she assured me it was not a binding contract, just an application.

She said she'd call me in a few days which she never did. I got a call from UCB - United Collection Bureau and they harrassed me with foul language and all twice now. I have recorded them once and keep the recorder handy. They did offer a $5600 settlement after I called a manager complaining of the treatment but could not come up with the money in 2 days like they wanted.

I am hoping to go through a debt settlement company I've read about here on the blogs but have to convince my husband to even check into it first. We too have about $80,000 in debt.

The biggest accounts are with BOA and Chase as well. What did you have to do to settle with them? Were your accounts past due? Did you settle on your own? Are you comfortable sharing the amount they settled on?

My husband owes about $32,000 on Bank of America and about $30,000 on chase.

I do believe that you may be able to settle with Citicard once it goes between 90-120 days past due. Unless they do what they did to me and send you to collections right away where you may get a settlement but not without a good fight.

Citibank settles all day long. Give the debt more time. At least 120 days.

Looks like we are in the same boat! We paid BOA 40% of what we owed them (on approx 30K) and Chase 60% (on approx 35k). We did it ourselves and luckily my parents loaned us the money to do it. We probably could have gotten lower on the Chase, but we were only a week past due, and I wanted to get it resolved in tax year 2008. We are claiming insolvency on our tax returns so we do not have to pay income tax (with the housing market the way it is, we are definately insolvent). I guess I will just wait another month so we are 90 days past due.

Thanks for the info. Great help!

Yes, definitely wait another month or so on the citibank! Should work in your favor!

Settled with Citi at 55%. The only reason I settled that high was they gave me 12 months to pay. I could not believe it and I jumped it.

That's awesome, BLL! and 12 months to pay? Can't beat it! I would have jumped on it myself!

Kmlenck, can I ask if your situation was due to a job loss or illness . . . or was it like us - we're just not able to keep up with all the bills and I could see the cliff coming in the distance

I convinced my husband to try to settle our debt by borrowing from family since we are barely able to pay minimum payments and seeing interest get higher and higher and falling deeper and deeper into debt. I don't know how much longer we can survive like this on one income

I just want to be prepared when negotiating with the cc companies. Any advice would be really helpful

That's awesome, BLL! and 12 months to pay? Can't beat it! I would have jumped on it myself!

Kmlenck, can I ask if your situation was due to a job loss or illness . . . or was it like us - we're just not able to keep up with all the bills and I could see the cliff coming in the distance

I convinced my husband to try to settle our debt by borrowing from family since we are barely able to pay minimum payments and seeing interest get higher and higher and falling deeper and deeper into debt. I don't know how much longer we can survive like this on one income

I just want to be prepared when negotiating with the cc companies. Any advice would be really helpful

Both - my husband cut off part of his finger (camping accident) so he was out of work for awhile. He did get disability - but it wasn't enough to cover everything, so little by little, the balances on the CC's started creeping up. When he did go back to work, diesel was almost 5 a gallon, and since he drives a diesel truck over 100 miles a day to different jobs sites, we were not able to keep up with that. We were still able to make the minimum payments - but we saw the cliff coming too. I consulted a bankruptcy lawyer and a financial advisor. Based on the bankruptcy laws, we decided that the settlement route was the best option. We tried to get the money out of our 401Ks, but did not qualify for the hardship withdrawal (which made no sense to me - we were definitely in hardship!), so we had to borrow a lot of money from my parents (that was a tough conversation!) We have made a lot of progress. I was able to get our loan modified, they reduced the interest rate to 5% for the remainder of the loan term so that is saving us $700 a month, and we should be able to pay off our truck with our tax refund. Now only one credit card left! Just in time - my husband got laid off on Monday, but at least now we can survive on my income until things pick up in the construction field.

Citibank has offered me 80% of debt needed 20000 on a 26000 debt and would like to put me on payments for 3 years. I am currently in litigation and trying to settle for a less amount been in litigation for 6 months. Was in a debt settlement program but settled with chase and barclay's at between 20 and 30%. No wonder Citibank needs 45-50 billion from the tarp.

i was in a settlement program about 4 years ago and they said citi was the worst. my lowest account 1,000 and they sued me. the settlement company said they would try to work with them but they never have luck with them. and i was no exception. They wouldnt budge

But dont let that scare you i hear they are settling a good bit now, but then they settled with nobody. that was long before the recession and bad stuff now i think they may just be happy to get something.

Today I received a fairly large envelope from Citi Cards. My mailman looked at me when he handed it to me as on the front in large letters it stated: We'll Take (and then the amount of $4,796.44 was displayed below the words "We'll Take" the balance was followed by the words off your balance. OK, waht's this? Do they have a right to disclose any part of my balance for the entire world to see? In fact, the see through window allows one to see my original balance as well. In addition, they have a King piece from a chessboard displayed on the front of the envelope and the message is clear...I owed them x amount and here's our settlement offer and by the way, checkmate!

got that letter too. maybe it's just that i'm reaching the tipping point with days late, but it seems as though the banks are more aggressively offering settlements lately. the last few i've spoken to have initiated settlement offers. is this typical or something new?

How many days late when you received these letters?
I'm over 120 with citibank and so far not a offer. Thought I was like 150 days late but for some reason they gave me extra days to pay and catch up at the beginning.

About 90 days late on the one I got the letter about. It's on a balance of about 5K. I have another citi universal card with 25K balance and haven't received settlement offer on that one, but it's only about 70 days late.

effed1,
I have a citi universal at&t with about 15k at 85 days late. Just yesterday I was talking to them, explaining my situation for the 10th time, and explained that payment plans are just not going to work. I also said that If they were willing to work with me, lump sum payments would be in my best interest. The rep then said, your settlement offer right now is at 65%. That was the first communication of a settlement offer. The last month they've been pushing hardship programs. I just hinted about a settlement and got a % out of them. Not bad at 85 days... just going to get better from here!

I will keep in touch with you about Citi Universal!!

I settled my attuniv at 45% but it was a small balance of approx 3500 or so. It was my first card to settle approx 150ish..I settled a larger one after it was assigned to UCB United Collection Bureau, they were fairly rude and agressive, but eventually it went off at 28% I think the balance was 23-24K and it was 4 payments of $1500

I have 1 card left to go, with Citi, bal approx 18k, no offers I can handle charges off within a week. They have been difficult to deal with, and somehow act as if they have no idea how bad things are. Shoot in my area they are closing libraries, laying off cops, closing down sections of the jails, on and on...Seems there's just no money left in the state...They were also the first creditor I asked for a better interest rate way back when. Had the card 10+ years, never late, and they jacked the rate to 29.9% interest. I called and asked for it to be reduced...Answer NO the economys too Bad!!! Ha:)

I got a settlement offer from citi at 65% when I was only about 30 days late. I was already on a hardship program. I never called to take it I am hoping I can get something better soon.

thanks bmungo7. i'd love to knock out my citi universal b/c it's my largest balance, but i have some other cards that are later and already offering settlements, and with limited funds to settle, i need to put off citi for awhile.

citi offered me 12-month, 0% payment plans on both cards, so i've taken them up on these plans for now. my reasoning is it will buy me time until i can get rid of other cards (total of 8, with 4 potentially settling soon), raise more money, and avoid any legal action on these. the payments are somewhat affordable, about $300/month for both, and it all goes to principle. on the other hand i'd love to be saving that toward settlement but i'm very averse to getting sued.

best of luck and definitely let us know how it works out.

i have 3 citi cards around 9k i just got a spenda or summons. They are sueing me since i stop making payments last july...no settlments or that damn lifeguard did nothing for me.....

so i tried talking to them so im filing bankcrubpy

Does any body settle after been served in court? and during the 30 days to responds to the summons. I owe $5,700.00 and they just sued me for that plus attorney fees, does anybody can advice on this, and how they settle, I been a year without making my payments, and I received that letter for about 50% but I could not come up with the money they asking for. Please Advice!

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Extra Extra. This is as of few hours ago. I have two cards with Citi totaling $20,000. I am only 40 days late and received a very nice settlment letter for 40%, excluding the junk fees that were added in the past 40 days. They gave me 3 months to pay. Note: I have never asked for the settlement.

Amex, the bastards, they sent my account to collection (NCO) and lawyers after 10 days late. I WILL NEVER do business with AMEX

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Like speaking with your best friend. They (CITI) were extremely polite. I couldn't believe it. I was $300 short from the proposed settlement, he put me on hold and revised the letter that is on the mail. I am not able to believe what happened, but it is the truth. I have been with CITI for 16 years.

STAY AWAY FROM AMEX!

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Read my original note.

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At only 41 days I received a 45% offer from Citi, can do with up to 3 payments within 3 months, the account balance is about $6,700, but I haven't accepted yet. I have a second Citi account with about $5,000 on it, it is about the same amount of days late, but the said they will settle for 85%, I declined that immediately and said they should at least come with the same percentage or don't bother...

I owe 56K ,this amount it with all the penalties and fees of about 4k,they want to settle for 23K. I am asking them to settle for 18K with four payments. The next thing for me is BK if they do not settle. I have explained to them that BK is my next option. I think it would be better to receive somthing rather than nothing. Does anyone have any advice?

I would call DS Financial at 866-833-6398. They settled all of my accounts for approx 22.5 cents on the dollar and they charge a small fee not percentage based like most companies.

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I am on a hardship plan with Citi (and a few others) paying 1% of balance per month at 0% interest for one year, then we go back to orig. rates and payments. OK for now but don't know how long I can keep up.

I would give it more time, there just playing hard ball right now. You can get a little closer to 120, They offered me a settlement, I decided to take it a day too late and it was sent to collections, where I am currently getting offers to settle for even less.
You can do it without a settlement company

At 143 days late with Citi AT&T Universal. Mom stopped paying min due to health issues... living off SS. Orig. bal. was 14k. Now upto 16k. There are 3 other creditors I have to settle with for her. I just spoke with them yesterday for the 1st time in a month 1/2. I explained to them I had 5k lump sum I could give them to settle. They came back today with 35%, 5.7k. I thanked the rep for her efforts, but declined. I have x number of dollars to go around and that's all I have right now. I'm hoping they come back & accept the 5k.

Greetings,

Checked my spreadsheet and I settled with Citi at 119 days for $6,032 on a $14,098 balance.

So just get some different call numbers and try for the best.
Here's onethat I have:

866-972-1368

Others may add more.
Shop it around.

And Good Luck!

I received a call from Citibank yesterday on an account 69 days past due. They offered a 65% settlement on a balance of $27,000. They tell me that my account will remain with Citi for 5-6 months and then would be turned over to another agency. Most blogs report that once the account is moved, these agencies are really hard to deal with.

At B of A I owed $21,000 and they settled for $6500 and split it up over 5 payments, 3 at $600+ and 2 at $2325. My last payment is due 5/31. They have been really nice to deal with.

Please note that when accepting settlements from credit card companies you will receive a 1099 from them and you will have to report everything forgiven above $600 as income on your income tax return and you will have to pay taxes. Has anyone received a 1099 from a credit card company for prior years?

on the phone now with citi and after 3-4 months I am settling on 19k for 33% (6500) !!

Just hang in there and keep trying and mention you are getting this money from family members

Hello, I am trying to settle a 24k debt spread on 5 credit cards. Most of my credit cards are at 15-45 days late. I receive calls from citi every 5 days. I have explained my situation and until now the have offered me a hardship program. When will they bring up a settlement program? or should I propose it to them?
Thanks, your advice will be very appreciated!

I have a citi account from Rooms 2 Go. I purchased some furniture using the card about a year and a half ago. I used the buy now, no payments until January 2010 option. That was when the economy was good and my husband's business was thriving. The balance is currently about $4500. I have only made 5 payments, but I am unable to make any more due to an overwhelming amount of cc debt. I have stopped paying on all of my accounts and I am hoping to settle. Do you know if citi will be willing to settle since I have not paid that much on the principal? If they won't settle I want to try to keep them current. I am only 9 days late right now. Any advice?

Hello planeta,
welcome....keep reading all the threads on settlement...this will give you a good idea....Many of us have settled our debt ourselves.....45 days late will not get you a good settlement....from what I know....120 days late usually is a good time frame to start negotiating. I even has Citi send me a registered letter at about 90 days offering a settlement and I still waited until 120 days to settle......the settled one account for $3,500 for about $1,000.....So, just hang in there. If you can change your contact #s that would be good, but it is probably too late .....you are doing good!!! I took a hardship Progam for one of my cards, but settled all of my husband's card because it did not show on my credit report! It was the best we could do....Much luck to you and keep posting any questions...someone will reply

settlement my account reference no 14724594, ph 9873987091

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Hello, I am 120 days late on a citi debt (25K) and just received a phone call to settle for 7713.17 (70% forgiveness). I have until August 31st to take the deal. My question deals with FICO scores. I had a 787 score which is now a whopping 502. Can I negotiate on my credit score? Has anyone had it show as "paid in full"? They said it would show as "settled for less than owed"....how would this affect me? Is this negotiable? Thanks for all the replies!

Just wanted to report in this thread as well as the settlements seem to get jumbled up across multiple threads. I'm finally cc debt free. Settled my last card with Citi through a CA for 15% on a bal of 20K. Regarding the FICO score, it is what it is. I settled 5 of my personal cards, and the last update I had on my score was 582 which will likely go up after getting a new update from the settled citi card. Settled for less will affect you, and no it's not negiotiable going the settlement route. Just like there are forums to assist with settling, there are also forums to assist with fixing your credit score but it'll take some work and some time. I consider that step 2 in the process. Reality for me though is I'm never going back...I've already gotten dozens of offers from Cap1 and in some of the offers they come right out and indicate they've looked at my situation, see I'm getting back on track and even said something like we've reviewed your history as early as a few weeks ago. Obviously making on time payments for other accounts is gonna help but you'd need to get some of that negative stuff off your reports to really clean things up...

Thanks Maggie!

I am current on all of my other debt. The only reason why I got behind on Citibank was because they would not work with me when I orginally called them 4 months ago. They basically said you haven't missed a payment since 1992 and we think you're bluffing. I have 2 capital one accounts in good standing (5K and 4K limits) a 5th 3rd (7K limit) and a discover card that put me on a 1 year plan that helped lower my payments.

Citibank was the only one who said "oh, well, go see a credit counseling agency"

I was told by citibank rep that the reason they are offering me a 70% forgiveness is because I have given them 140,401 since 1992 and never missed a payment. When I actually think of that huge number, it makes me want to puke.

I am also taking financial peace university at my church and I can say I will never be a slave to debt ever again!

i can only say good things about citi bank, as they were the easiest for us to work with to get on a hardship plan. we missed one payment, and they called to find out if they could assist us, as we have had our accounts with them for a number of years and never been late. all 4 of our accounts had been closed previously when we called to opt out of increased rates. all of our other cards were closed when we called to opt out of higher rates as well. i can just imagine our credit score now. they were both near 700 when we began to have problems. hopefully, citi will give us a nice low settlement offer % wise when we get to that point. meanwhile we are keeping our hardship plan payments going as long as we can. mine is up for review in november or december and hubbies is a month later. when i explained our hardship being due to my being disabled & no income, they did not question that. which if anyone does, i have plenty of documents to prove my medical diagnoses..

Do I need to close all my credit card accounts in order to negotiate settlements with defaulted ones. I have two cards each from citibank and chase with over 5k and 8k balances for both companies that I'm over 120 days past due. I got offers from citi on the account with the 5k balance at 45% settlement but did not have money to accept the offer. Then I got another letter from citi for the same account two months latter with an offer for 60% settlement. I wrote them and referred to their previous offers and offered to pay $2k on the account and now they want to negotiate on the phone. please what do I need to get a deal when calling them? I have four other cards that are still open with balances, will this affect negotiations? My balances on the open accounts are $500.00, $500.00, $300 and $1400.00 from Amex, Amex, HSBC and Discover and they are maxed out, should i close them all? I wanted to settle my accounts with citi and chase before making any decisions on these lower limit accounts? is this a good idea?
Also I received an initial offer from chase about asking for 6k on the 8 k I owed but I declined and offered 3k. They then sent me a letter telling me they have been contacted by a settlement company on my behalf and that they don't settle with any third party companies. A month later they sent me an offer for 5k on the 8k, I'm holding out for something around 3.5k is this a good strategy?

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I am really curious about everyone saying wait 120 days w/citibank. I have been able to get on a payment plan with several other creditors but not citibank/att universal card. I've called ATT card numerous x and am told they will only allow me to make payments if they can take it directly out of my bank, even though i am unemployed. (So how is an unemployed person adding funds to their account? Sheesh.) I declined and every time, they said "well wait until you do have employment and let's talk again."

So here i am 6 months later, still unemployed, and i got a letter from a collections attorney about this debt. ATT won't even talk to me - i can only talk to the attorney, they say.
So what should I do? Talk to the attorney? Ignore the letter? I am astonished they would go to such lengths. I owe them less than $4,000 and have been a cardholder since 1995 and had excellent credit until a couple yrs ago when the economy tanked. They wouldn't work with me in a manner i could afford and now they want to sue?!! Man!

Citibank is aggressive and due sue as a regular course of business. Ignoring an attorney letter is not a good thing. Send them a letter or call.