Hi up until last year I was pretty set, good credit (for my age, didnt have a ton of credit tho). Then I lost my job, many of my bills fell behind and I couldnt make them. I tried my best and kept as many as I could out of collections, now I have been working for 4 months and I have caught up on 2 out of 3 of my credit cards, and am now paying the minimum montly payment for now. My car loan and educational loans are a month or 2 past due but I have talked with both of them and am have worked out payment plans to get them caught up within 2 or 3 months. However my Best Buy credit card went to a collection agency, the payment offers they made me were not within my reach and I couldnt pay them. During this time they would not accept normal montly payments, I could only pay the collections agency, and not a normal montly payment. They continued to charge me past due fees and over the limit fees even though I couldnt pay a normal montly payment because they wouldnt let me, I would have if they had let me. Anyways now I get a letter from Arrow Financial Services saying they have purchased my account and as the new owners of my account they would like to give me a 2nd chance to resolve this outstanding balance. I want to resolve it but when I called they only offered me 3 payments options... #1 Pay 75% balance in full and they would settle for 75% of the balance, the total balance is $1772.20. #2 Pay the full balance, put down $600 down payment and pay $150 a month. or #3 Pay full balance, Pay $300 a month with no down payment. None of these is a viable option, I now have a job but it pays 50% less then my last job and I can barely pay the bills I have, I have already cut off as many expenses as I can, but there is no way I can afford any of thoose payment options. They were very firm and wouldnt offer me anything else. They threatened to take me to court (Which Im told is unlikely due to my relatively small balance). So I would appreciate any advice, I am new to this whole debt thing, and while small compared to many, it is still scary facing this for a first time, and I hope its my last. This credit card didnt have a huge balance compared to my loans (Over $20k) it is giving me the most trouble. Any advice you can offer to resolve my situation would be greatly appreciated. For now I am stuck in my currecnt job, my trans on my car died, and my company gives me a truck to use, since Im a field tech. So even looking for another job isnt really possible without any transportaton.
you should do a search on this CA, they are blood suckers. They do not care about helping you to resolve this, they just want to get you to fork over as much money as fast as they can. first things first, do not talk to them on the phone!!!! tell them that this is all to confusing and you want everything in writing if they want to get any money at all. Your not refuseing to pay(never say that you are) you just need to get it in writing. this will buy you time and give you a chance to work out a stratige stay calm, the damage is already done for the most part. focus on paying the people who will work with you. then figure out what you are going to do about the ones who want to be dirt bags.
At this point, since they are demanding payment and threatening legal action, (which if they do not intednd to actually do, is a violation of the FDCPA), you should send them a validation letter. Read the faq's thread, at the top of the list. It will give you a little insight into what the validation letter is. You can find the validation letter in the letter section. Also, if you do a search for validation, you will get tons of results which will also help.
How can they charge late fees after they charged the debt off? I don't think that they can do this. Also, in order to charge you interest etc. they have to send you statements every month. This information is either in the Fair Credit Billing Act or the Truth In Lending Act. Send validation and see exactly what they are charging you for. The balance is probably inflated to begin with. How do you know that Arrow actually purchased the debt? Do you have this in writing or did they just say so. Don't give them any personal information about you! Don't tell them where you work!
The letter they sent me says and I quote... "Arrow Financial Services purchased your best buy account. As the new owners of your account we would like to give you a second chance to resolve your outstanding balance." They did send me montly statements, yet I could not pay them! They said I had to deal with the collection agency, which isnt arrow, it was someone else before arrow. Being that they sent me montly statements but wouldnt let me pay montly payments to them... isnt that illegal or something? It seems very wrong that they charged me intrest and late fees and over the limit fees when I could not pay my montly statement!
I have printed up the debt valadation form and have it ready to mail out. Please let me know if I should anything else, and what. Since Im new to this I dont want to send this out without being sure this is all I should do for now.
Do not talk to them on the phone and if they ever call tell them to never call you again. If they do, thats a violation. Send a validation and start from there Do not even worry about it, the worst that could happen is that the might actually take you to court. The balance is not even high enough for them to make sense to sue. But read the FAQ and start from there.
Ok I have sent a validation form on 10/28 Via certified mail, and got no response at all from them. They called me once after I mailed it... but about 2 days after, but I dont think they received my letter by then.... I talked to this guy just a little and he wasnt too bad, he offered me a 50% settlement /w anything on my credit report related to this erased, after I brought up the fact that they were sending me montly statments but not accepting my payments because it was sent to collections and they kept charging me fees during this time. I told him to send the offer in writing and I never got anything.... Where do I go from here? Do I send another validation letter?
You sent a validation letter on 10/28???? Stop talking to them you are shooting yourself in the foot. Quit worrying about paying this - these collection agencies purchase debt that has been written off, for pennies on the dollar, in hopes of making a profit off your misfortune. They are bottom feeders - you do not owe them anything!!!! The creditor (HHB) made their decision - they didn't work with you, didn't think they would get paid, wrote the debt off and sold it. Forget it. Your validation letter has taken care of this for the time being. If they sue you when they haven't validated, they have handed you your defense. If they can't validate, they can't get anywhere with you. That is the rule. Now you sit back and wait for them to screw up or sell this debt to another CA who will screw up. Do not talk to any of these people except to get company name and address. Only correspond via certified RRR mail. You will win this one. When it is over and you are back on your feet, if your conscience bothers you about the money, you can donate to charity. But whatever you do, do not support this bloodsucking industry of bottom-feeding debt collectors.
Well what I need is to eventually get this off my credit report! While I'm not so worried about it yet, eventually I will be moving into a house etc... and I need to get my credit back to do so. So yes I could sit and not pay it, but the goal is to get this off my credit report... when I asked what to do I was told to send my validation letter which I did. I havent talked to them in 2 months and dont plan to.
Paying it does not get it off your credit report!!!!!! It makes it harder to get it off your credit report!!!! Do some reading. You need to educate yourself about how this screwed-up credit system really works. At this point, paying it gives the CA ammunition to keep it on your report longer.
Ok what youve been telling me is to do nothing... but that also does nothing. I'm not just going to leave it sit on my credit report, that will do nothing but hurt me. Noones going to loan me money for a house or a car when its shown I owe this money.
After they received the validation, did you dispute with the CRA? If they verify with the CRA without validating, it is a violation.
Go ahead and send a letter to the CRA's now that they are reporting to, with something like "do not recognize". The CA cannot verify without validating, or that is considered continued collection activity and is a violation. In theory they should remain silent and the CRA will delete. I've heard some horrid stuff about Arrow, but just keep racking up the violations. You might do a search on here about them, to follow how they treat debtors. For the future, the best time to do this is as soon as you get the green card back from the CA, that way you are not waiting in purgatory forever. Good luck!
Ok since Im really new to this I have no idea what CRA they have reported to. Is my best option to get my credit reports and check? If so what is the best place to get all 3 reports? And I also have no clue what is a violation and what isnt... Im getting by not responding to my validation that is 1 right there?
Ok, here's a piece of advice from a fellow poster that is new to this. You have put the cart before the horse a bit, but it may be fixable. Before you do anything else, or send any more letters: 1. Read the top 3 threads on this board (excluding the CHOD and Class Action that I think are 1 and 2 now) several times, it takes a few times to absorb. 2. Yes, definitely pull your reports! You may (probably) have more errors. Don't pull a 3 in 1, order from each of the individual CRAs. I believe you said you had a financial downtime, so you may have lots more to get off your report before you are ready to buy a house. www.transunion.com www.equifax.com www.experian.com Not validating, is not a violation. They can choose to remain quiet. But if they call you, put stuff on your Credit Reports, send you more bills, etc. that is considered continued collection activities, each are a violation. If you do get anything else from them, come back here and tell us what it is...Proper validation is hard to come by. The people on this board will help you all they can, but you will have to empower yourself with knowledge first. Welcome to the board!
LOL, I did not say "do nothing". I said read and educate yourself. Here's a place to start. All the experience of board members, all the reference sites and legal sites are in here (see the links given below). The FCRA and FDCPA are your "bible." Don't do anything until you study up a bit. Stop fighting us - we are here to help, and we know the ropes. That said, I will turn you over to the others on this board, perhaps someone else can communicate with you better than I have so far. http://consumers.creditnet.com/stra...ad.php?s=&goto=newpost&threadid=29734&pgnum=1 http://consumers.creditnet.com/straighttalk/board/showthread.php?s=&pgnum=1&postid=280813#post280813
I didnt mean to come off like that, its just frustrating starting out and not knowing where to go. I will read what you have linked.
