Hiya Credit-netters, I would like your opinions on a response for a PFD I sent out to a CA. I sent the standard pay for delete, (as seen in our archives here) and today I received a response. I was excited to get any response, but when I opened the letter I was confused. Here is what is says: "This letter will confirm our agreement to accept XXXX (around 20 dollars) as full and final payment on the above account. As agreed, the debt is valid and payment will be received in our office no later than 03/30/07" They agree to take my money but say nothing about the delete, correct? Or is it understood that by 'confirming our agreement to accept XXX' they are agreeing to my terms that I sent them. My question is: should I send another letter as if this one never existed, send a letter asking that the deletion be mentioned, or should I just go ahead and send the money. Thanks very much for reading, Floydilian
They agreed to get paid, they didn't agree to delete. I would get clarification on this before I send a penny.
"In God We Trust, all others put it in writing"!! The letter is not agrreing to the deletion of the tradeline, in fact it implies that they can report it, as they are stating "As agreed, the debt is valid". I would write back, sending letter Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested (CMRRR), stating your terms for payment and settlement. Do not pay until you have reached mutually agreeable terms and conditions.
Thanks for the replies everybody! I will draft a new letter today restating those terms. At the very least, this letter did at least give me a name of someone to write to at the CA so I'll go with that. Nobody said this would be easy, hopefully the next round of mail will net me a PFD. All this for 24 bucks! Thanks again, I'll keep you posted with the progress. -Floydilian
They also appear to be attempting to establish that you have acknowledged the debt, for purposes of resetting SOL, when you may have disputed the debt (rather than agreed that the debt was valid), and thought you had an agreement to pay it under certain terms despite having disputed it. If in fact, you thought you had an agreement to pay a small debt of questionable validity in exchange for deletion, their counteroffer indicates an intent to twist this entirely around. As a practical matter, SOL may be of little consequence for a $24 debt, so why the "weasel words" in their response? Looks like an indication of their usual business practices, which may be an indication to you that you should not trust anything that is not clearly spelled out in writing.
Ontrack, The PFD that I sent explicitly stated that I was not acknowledging the debt, but I agree with your assessment. I have written the second letter using the same language, asking them to agree to my terms in writing in their response. Thanks, Floydilian
Since their response to a PFD on a trivial debt was not agreement with your terms, is there any question of the validity of the debt? And did you dispute or request validation of the debt?
Ontrack, Again, thanks for responding. The debt is trivial but I believe it is mine - I disputed it and requested validation - and got an original bill from the utility company in response. Still waiting on the dispute from the CRAs. As I see it, a PFD is my best hope. FYI - the bill is from a house I moved out of in college, apparently we didn't pay the last month's bill. I never received any bill, nor any correspondence from the CA, 2 things which I pointed out in my PFD. Thanks, and wish me luck! -Floydilian
Third possible usable issue might be whether the account was actually in your name. Although utility bills might be legally billable to any adult resident where the service was provided, and CAs have been known to use that to bill other adults who were not actually on the account by locating them via whatever skip-tracing showed via address information, if you were not actually on the account, you might want to use that uncertainty to negotiate removal as a condition for payment.
