finally ! settlements have begun !

Sounds good. But make sure you read the settlement agreement letters thoroughly. It is better to know the terms and conditions in advance. Sign the letters after reading them. Since, you have so many credit cards to settle, why don't you try to find out ways to earn more? Extra cash will help you get debt free sooner.

Seems like a good workable plan if you can stick to it. I settled with Citibank and just paid them off last month. Am in the process of paying Bank of America and have only Capital One left to settle.

My daughter is fighting for social security too. It will be 2 years this coming May. When she was denied, even after going to one of their doctors, we turned her case over to an attorney who specializes in getting ss claims paid. There's no upfront money; he collects if she collects. We are waiting for a hearing (notified in August and STILL are waiting). It's a long, long process and they are not your friend.

My advice would be to find one of these attorneys if you are denied after the doctor exam. Ours used to work for social security so he knows all the ropes.

Good luck.

i have been trying to get ssdi for years. first claim was denied all the way thru ss appeals and now that claim is filed in fed district court waiting for a hearing. dec 2009 thru feb this year my health has gotten worse with quite a few new diagnoses, meds and functional limitations. atty told me to file a new claim while waiting on the old one to go to hearing at dist court. i filed the new one in late feb 2010, denied on initial exactly 3 months later the last week of may 2010. within a week attorney filed for reconsideration (that was done 2nd day of june), and here it is 7 months later, waiting for recon decision. the fact they are sending me to a dr at this point looks good. they usually make a recon decision quicker (less than 90 days) than they do on initial. i have had to talk to the dds examiner several times (atty gave me permission- as it involved the appt date and time) and he told me they are looking for the severity of a particular condition. as i said, recon was filed early june, and i got the notice of dr appt in early november (that was beginning of month 5 - they have usually decided and denied by month 3 at recon).
i have read on the internet that by them sending me for eval at this level of the claim, that they are leaning toward approval, but need a second dr's opinion (my dr being the first) to back up their decision & cover their butts for approving me..
my attorney is one of only a few in our state that can do all court levels, even supreme court. he told me that if i am approved on the new claim, they CAN approve me as far back as when my first claim was filed (years ago). if they do that, the atty will terminate the first claim that is in dc. if they pay me for example back to 2008, the claim in dc will be based on 2008 back to date it was filed. if the claim in dc happens to come up for hearing before the 2010 claim is approved, the claims will be combined and become one claim. if the 2010 claim is denied and has to go to alj hearing, the atty will ask them to reopen old claim and combine. atty said if i get denied on 2010 claim he will request a "dire need" on the record hearing and for me to write to the state senators and they can help get a hearing expedited. i talked to someone local that did that and was at hearing within 6 weeks and was approved, so it does work.
aubrey, i know ssa is not our friend.. the sad thing is, i know people on ssdi and ssi that are physically & mentally able to work, but yet they were approved...what you call a malingerer...

maggie- physically i can not do much due to my musculoskeletal disorders, and with my anxiety, depression and panic attacks, i am not good with people anymore. my hubby works a full time job, sometimes has to be "on call" at his work, he sells stuff we no longer want or need at a local flea market & does side jobs at home working on cars. due to his job, and the fact he has to do most things here at home- it is not possible for him to get a second job. he is doing all he can. i do sell some things on ebay that i can get more for than he would get at the market..we have emptied out our savings other than the ira. if we have to take some money from it in a few months, we will do so. but hopefully i get approved for ssdi in the next few months and dont have to do that. we have cut down expenses as much as possible, shy of turning off phone, internet and tv.. we are doing all we can & this is how we have managed to do hardship programs with most cards until now. just been holding them off until we get tax refund will get some taken care of & have a little left for medical expenses.

believe me i will read the settlement letters word for word before i sign and send back.

Great Plan and good settlement terms. I should have hired you to do mine ;) as I could not get them under 30%. Good Luck. dtm

Congrats! I know that when they finally start settling, it feels good! I always felt like the plan was coming together. We settled two BofA at 20% each; they were our lowest.

Keep up the good work!

thanks ! i had originally hoped i could settle all of ours for around 20%. but with the first mention by them of 35%, then next time i talked to them they quickly dropped it to 25%, without any effort on my part, i figured, heck 5% less wasnt worth all the bickering back and forth, & less stress on ME ... 5% would have been $260 less, and could be applied elsewhere, but to me not worth stressing me out even more...i get too frustrated which makes my health probs worse & due to meds am just completely out of sync for days...i hope the others offer as good of offers (if not better) as quickly as they did without all the extra stress... 2 of the ones in collections are low and some of the chase ones are low (by low i mean between 1000 to 2000. as said before citi will be the last of the mohecans- and the toughest to come up with the money (unless i am approved for ssdi). i just hate to see what the credit report is gonna look like at the end.....i heard something on news today that now creditors are looking at more than just your credit score and payment history. they are also looking at your "spending" habits via the report to see what you pay vs your balance per loan and cards... fine by me, cause cards all closed out, only other things on cr are mortgage and 2 cars -last one bought mid 2008 (hubby's old truck died and he had to have something extremely reliable) & mine will be paid for in 8 or 9 months if not sooner.

I will keep my fingers crossed for you. My ex-son-in-law collects social security and is able-bodied. He just knows how to scam everyone. I just had to lend my daughter another $200 so she could pay her rent on her studio apt. We are waiting on notification of the hearing. Her request for reconsideration was already denied.

Sounds like you got a good lawyer. It's unbelieveable that we have to hire lawyers to get benefits.

Hang in there!!

i got my settlement agreement letters from bofa yesterday.and everything is correct per our verbal agreement. now to get these payments done and move on to the next ones...

citi card- hubby's big one......
current balance almost 18k
settlement offer 50%

just spoke to citi a bit ago, and they will not budge off 50%.. so we have to pay almost 9k, option of 3 months payments or lump sum

other options: #2 one hardship program option, pay full balance over 48 months 0 interest for the whole time and payments around $375 a month... #3 we could pay the past due amount just over $2400 all at once or over 3 months, then regular payments including current interest rate of 14.9 % til it is paid off.. this is NOT an option, why pay them more interest?? this one dont make sense..... why cant we pay $2400 then be under hardship plan with lower payments?

so, to give us some time to figure things out and citi keeps this account with them for another 30 days, we are making a payment on this one thursday...

citi card -my big one ..
i had talked to them about this one last month and set up a tenative settlement of 50%, made one payment around $275, another $275 due in a few days, then the final payment being the balance of the settlement, around $6900...they did tell me if it come time for this months $275, that i cant do it, they will try to work with me...

i can not afford to settle both of these at 50%, i would be back to being flat broke... so i am thinking, what if i settled hubby's, and put my acct into the hardship program instead? the payments would be less than his would be (due to balance is several thousand less than his), but i would have to pay a larger amount out now.....

my smaller citi card, already sent to zakheim (gotten one letter a week for last 3 weeks & several calls that i have not answered), citi did verify they sent it to them for collections, and the letters match the balance, account # etc that citi states---, so i have to deal with them on this one...i will be sending them a dv tomorrow...

Chase bank--
MRS collection agency- has one of my chase accounts balance just under $1700. confirmed by chase they sent to this ca. numbers all match up. received initial letter, than a couple of weeks ago received a settlement offer for 60%. i spoke to a lady there, and discuss settlement options, and payment possibilites.. i am not paying 60%. as this is the lowest balance of all the cc's, i will handle it after i have talked to the others.

zwicker has 2 chase accounts that are hubby's- sent dv letters out to them yesterday.

one of my chase accounts was sold to equable ascent financial llc. in which they turned over immediately (no contact from eaf) to creditors financial group.. i sent them a dv, they signed and received it on aug 17. still no response from them...they are trying to collect the full amount i owed chase around $2100-- they aint getting it ! they paid probably about 200 $ for the debt.. but as they have not responded to the dv yet, i will be sending a followup dv to them, or should i call them, or send EAF a dv and call them ?

we have a few that we were way behind on & have payment arrangements with, payments are low, some balances are low...
one balance around 180, one balance less than 600-- not much interest being paid, so may pay them on off and free up that $60 a month-not sure yet. we have 2 others we got payments set up on with low interest, payments on those about $60 a month- if they will settle low enough, will pay those off...

tomorrow i will be calling some of the other banks to see how low i can get them to settle for, and go from there... will post more as we progress...
got my spreadsheet done with balances per account, and figures for 20%, 25%, 30% and 35%...then i tallied up the cost of settling them all at the different % for total going out, vs making pay arrangements and settling lump sum on the 2 large citi accounts.....going after the larger balances first with one boa and one discover to see what they would accept..

Not sure how delinquent your accounts are, and what your strategy has been, but I'm guessing you made some mistakes along the way. It's odd for Chase accounts to end up with Zwicker's office until much later in the stages of delinquency. Also, there's no reason you can't do better than 50% on a Citibank settlement. MRS is usually more cooperative than what you're describing.

quote mariemegge "Not sure how delinquent your accounts are, and what your strategy has been, but I'm guessing you made some mistakes along the way. It's odd for Chase accounts to end up with Zwicker's office until much later in the stages of delinquency. Also, there's no reason you can't do better than 50% on a Citibank settlement. MRS is usually more cooperative than what you're describing. "

to answer mariemegge---
you should do a little re-reading my post in re of MRS...

first mistake, getting so far in debt... other than that the only mistake i made was signing on briefly with a debt settlement firm that according to searches, had a very high bbb rating- they sent out letters before they stated in their contract and that started a lot of this not being able to talk to the creditors, cause the oc's would not talk to me til i got it all sorted that i was not involved with a settlement firm.....for a brief few days, got copy of the agreement, called and cancelled enrollment within a matter of days..

chase has not received payment on any of the 4 accounts since dec 2010 and jan 2011.... so it has been way past 180 days before they were sent to collections: 2 at zwicker, 1 at MRS and 1 sold to jdb.....so figure these were about on target time wise to have been sent somewhere for collections...

I have not had any problem with MRS as yet, they sent initial letter, without me having talked to them or sent them anything they sent a second letter with the settlement offer of 60%, which i have only talked to on one occasion as i have a little time to negotiate before anything further happens...


as for citi, i have talked to them and tried to get them to accept less than 50% on the accounts, they will not budge. they say if i did not get something worked out on the days i talked to them, or at least make a certain pay amount to keep it in hands of litigation for another 30 days giving myself some time to get the money for settlement, the next day the account would be sent to an atty which the interest still racks up, along with late fees and atty fees....

so miss mariemagee, if you were in our shoes, what would you do- other than hire the company you work for to settle them for you???

I have been busy on the phone today talking to most of my cc banks and getting settlements worked out.... and getting some decent $$s that are very do-able.... i am too stressed from it all right now to get into specifics, so i will post more info later....

i will just say the lowest % i got came from guess who.... boa the snake between 26.5%- 27%, balance was just over $5400, settled for $1450 (which i would not consider a snake any longer, as this is the 3rd and final account we have settled this year with them and very easily). the 2 earlier this year as i have noted before we settled at 25% that THEY offered right out of the gate....

back later with more to share

See what I mean? Now you're on your way! Sounds like you had a good and productive day. As far as what would I do on the Citibank account? It depends on the written correspondence you've been receiving. You'd be quite surprised at what information can be found in these letters when you read between the lines. Can't wait to hear of your progress. Congratulations!

first off, the last correspondence we got on any of the citi accounts were the settlement offers... one of those offers expired on aug 10, i spoke to citi a couple days after that and they told me it had been sent to collections atty and next thing i knew within a week, i was getting calls from zakheim (did not answer) and then started getting letters from them...
i spoke to them yesterday to see what they had to say and was given 3 options.. i have until the end of the month to work something out. i went ahead and dealt with all the other cc's except the 2 at zwicker and the one that chase sold to equable ascent financial-they still have not replied to the dv i sent (not surprised at that)...
since my discover card account is in a hardship program with low pay & interest, there is currently no chance of settlement.
i started out yesterday with 12 cc debts, 2 with tiny balances of 150 and 518, and trying to settle 10 cc accounts...
status:
4 settlement agreements, all 4 sent agreement letters by email that i printed out, payment went out to them today. awaiting "account paid" letters next week.
2 still negotiating
2 at zwicker awaiting dv letter response then negotiate, they signed for
letters today 9/15
1 awaiting dv response from jdb
1 discover under hardship program- no settlement option

i know we will run out of money before we are able to settle the 2 at zwicker and the 2 we are negotiating & 1 at jdb if they validate.. so we will have a payment or two in addition to the 2 small accounts & the one discover card payment.....

the good thing--- my house phone has only rang 4 times all day....2 unknowns and the other 2 were not bill collectors or creditors....

Greetings "[URL="http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/forums/member.php?u=225586"]generallee[/URL] ",

Boa is now a dead snake......more ways than one.

Seems that their evil ways have finally caught up with them.

Congrats on your settlement with 'em.

Regards,
King "Kash" Jabba Labba

Way to Go Generallee. I am now dealing with taxes and insolvency so that is just around the corner. By next year this will all be history for me, and soon for you as well.

thanks!!
i been waiting on the dv responses for 2 of hubbies at zwicker, and 1 from the jdb's collection agency (still no answer from these nuts)..

i had used the sample letters here to write up the dv letters, so if you have seen them, you know the basics of what you request in re of documents..i got the signature cards back that stated they got them on 9/15/11, and they were mailed out on 9/12/11.. only 3 days for them to get there..

today i got something on both at zwicker, and it aint even close to a dv !! i asked for proof that they are licensed to collect in our state, and proof that they were hired to collect for chase and other info.. and this crap is what i get ! this is NOT a Debt validation in my eyes!!!

this is what the letters say:

9/16/2011
file id #
RE: chase bank usa, n.a.
acct # balance: $$$

dear __________:
this letter will confirm that based on information which this law firm received from our client, the creditor identified the above, as of today's date you owe the amount stated next to the word "Balance" above on the above identified account.

please contact this office to discuss repayment with (name), one of our non-attorney account managers

very truly yours,
zwicker & associates, p.c.


i hate to keep having to spend $5.25 for each registered letter i have to send this idiots, and they still will not properly validate... i think i am going to be in touch with chase on this matter, as well as the ftc

UPDATE : 9/24/11
as noted before --i started out with 12 cc debts. i knew we would not be able to settle them all right now, but did pretty good i think..
here is where we stand today:
2 with tiny balances of citi $150 and discover $518.....
1 discover under hardship program- no settlement option..
1 citi under hardship program- will explain this later..
1 still awaiting dv response from jdb..

4 settlement agreements, all 4 sent agreement letters by email that i printed out. awaiting "account paid" letters due in any day..
1 @ ca for GE/Sams club settled at 40% (they started at 65%)
1@ ca for BOA settled at 27% (they started at 50%)
1@ ca for Chase settled at 40% (they started at 70%)
Citi results---
(i bickered back and forth starting with 25% and increasing a little each
time i talked to them, they would not budge) i think the fact that we did
not talk to them for a good while is why they would not negotiate...
1@ ligitation inside Citi @ 50%
1 @ atty collection for Citi @ 50%
hubby has 2 at zwicker for Chase...got their so called dv letter that i posted the info in my last post here.. have pending settlements, awaiting to hear back from them to know if chase accepted or not, but they told me they are certain Chase will accept. We got lucky when we called them and got someone who was very nice and cooperative and went back and forth with her "boss" while i was on the phone... their initial offer was 70% on both, i countered with 25%, they countered with 60%, i countered with 33%, they countered with 50%,i declined. i was told that this is the lowest chase is accepting right now.. i made my final counter offer, and it is pending approval by chase... once i get the call for approval, i will post it here....

in re of the one citi that we put under the hardship plan 0 % for 48 months, we had no option... i knew going in that if we had to take 50% on the 2 large citi accounts, we would not have any left to settle the other cc's.. so what it would have taken out of our money to settle one of the larger citi's, we used to settle the 3rd citi card and 5 others.. it basically boiled down to 1 payment for the 1 citi vs 6 payments to multiple collectors - not bad i say... the 2 small balances will be paid off within a few months, then instead of 4 payments we will only have 2. then there is the one with the jdb- no validate, no money..

update:
knock off the 2 at zwicker ! chase accepted my final counter offer at 40%... so settled just over $5000 for $2002 !!

neither the jdb nor their collector has responded to the dv... so until that happens, i am DONE with settlements for now...

down the road if a big lot of money comes in at once, i will attempt the one left at citi......