I have negotiated with every account holder now except one. I owe $7700 on the credit card and it has been ASSIGNED to a collections firm that the OC states they will not recall from the CA. All other creditors have agreed to 4 - 5 year payoff plans at 0% - 10% interest. The best I can offer to this CA (NCO) might be 100% payback over 5 years. NCO does not own the account and has only been assigned it. What is best? Should I send out a DV and wait, or if I know the debt is mine should I call NCO and see what kind of terms they can give me? I have another 12 days to respond to the dunning letter. How likely is it that NCO will negotiate a long-term (60 months) payment plan at 1 - 2% intrest for a creditor such as CAP1 or Citi? What are your thoughts? I have $65K of outstanding unsecured debt and all but this last $7.7K is unresolved. I cannot afford to do much more than a 135.00 per month payment that would pay the debt in 60 months at 2% interest. Should I simply send a response with my proposal to pay $135.00 per month and send written evidence that this is what many other creditors have agreed to? Does wanting to negotiate without waiting for DV help me or hurt me? I know I have a lot of questions, but I repect the cumulative knowledge on this board.
The account "in question" was last paid upon approximately 195 days ago, hence the chargeoff from CAP 1. I convinced Cap 1 to recall one debt from assignment, but it was much smaller than the 7.7K. They refused to recall the 7.7K back into their recovery branch. I'm not sure how to proceed.
Haven't we all chimed in on this before? I am amazed that you are going to be beholding to these lechers for FIVE years or more. Hopefully you have thought it all out and feel this is the way for you to go and that you can keep to the agreements. I wish you lots of luck in your journey. Woofer
Chances of a Loan Mod at 1%-2% are low. They might go for a reduced amount over time at a higher rate, but will likley want a default clause allowing them to recapture any forgiven debt. Sounds as though you've been attempting to pay back alot of debt you know you owe, and I commend you for that. Woofer's statement is key: " Hopefully you have thought it all out and feel this is the way for you to go and that you can keep to the agreements". 5 yrs is a long time and leaves plenty of room for default. If this last creditor wont work with you, it could be the monkey wrench that screws up all the work and money you've spent thus far. Are you in any position to borrow a lump sum to settle all of your unsecured creditors and consolidate them into one payment?
I don't know of anyone/company that would loan me a lump sum to pay off this last issue. I'm not worried about my job. My credit is pretty well shot, so how would I find someone to loan me $7k+. Once I get to November 1, I can pay down my debt (or make payments of $1500.00 month above and beyond my other negotiated payment amounts.) I suppose that in a worse-case scenario, I could get sued and my wages garnished. Come November, I could easily afford to survive on 75% of takehome and still make the agreed upon payments to the others. I have a very high salary. The problem is how to proceed in the meantime. I have no idea how long before this big CA considers a legal route. In terms of agreements I've already made, I can keep these. As mentioned above, my job is very, very secure.
Then I guess, see if they'll modify the loan at the $135 per month you can afford. If I were them, I'd rather have consistent $135 per month payments as opposed to filing suit over $7.7K (which could cost them between $1K to $2K to file uncontested suit).
It doesn't cost nearly that much to file suit, the attorney's they use is on a contingent basis, not hourly, unless an answer is filed, or counter-claim is filed, then they will charge hourly, and if they win, added on the debt. The CC agreement will allow for 15% of the debt for attorney's fees, under most circumstances, the cost for filing suit in district court, plus the sheriff service fee. If you know the debt is yours, why would you send a DV letter, except to stall for time, then expect after they validate to do that long of a monthly agreement, they'd rather sue and garnish.
Thanks to all. Collectman, Would it be your opinion that it is best to open discussions of agreement early? Interestingly enough, I got ahold of a different person today at CAP1 who claimed it is very possible that CAP1 can pull the account back inhouse and perhaps work out an agreement. What gives? Everyone I speak with has a slightly different story as to what can and can't be done. It has helped me to finally get a number for their debt recovery folks that does not result in an apparent bounce to some out-sourced receivership overseas. Its as if I first needed to blast my way through the beachhead and reach the "recovery pillbox." LOL I'll just keep calling CAP1 everyday, until I'm satisfied they won't retract the debt from the CA. I think most of this is about numbers. CAP1 does not seem set up to work with individual debtors who want to pay. It is probably more cost effective for them to pawn all the extremely past dues out to CAs. In my personal expereince these past 18 months, Citi, BOA, US Bank, WAMU, etc are way ahead of CAP1 in their willingness to work with those who want, and can afford, a workout agreement.
Even if case were taken on a contingency basis, it could run close to $1,000 fees and costs. Debt that small, alot of attorneys require a $500 flat fee and court costs could run $250-$350.
I think you are confused, on a contingency basis, the attorney will usually require under $400 for suit costs, and thats all he will require to file suit and proceed with judgment executions. The attorney fees will be awarded in the petition and the journal entry of judgment, and recovered when the judgment is paid for example. On an hourly file, yes the attorney will require $250-500 for his fees, plus the suit fees.
You can get rid of NCO fairly easily but, since it is a CAP1 account, Cap1 will NOT go away without an extremely messy fight. The will assign it to different CA's and continue to report the account as a Charge-off EVERY MONTH until it is paid. This hurts your FICO as FICO sees it as a recent CO even if it happened 6 yrs ago. The balance will also grow at the default interest rate. Best thing is to contact Cap1 and plead with them to work with you as you do not work with CAs due to their nefarious nature.
I'll share the latest. Please keep in mind that it is my desire to negotiate some type of payments or settlement and receive this in writing. I'm not afraid of dealing with CA's or creditors. Cap1 keeps stating that they cannot retract the debt from NCO. I finally called NCO and I'm quite happy I did (I know that others think this might be a bad move.) I finally got in touch with someone who was clearly educated, knows the laws, and understood that I needed some insight into where NCO plays in with my Cap1 account. He agreed to set up a payment plan and will be sending our verbal agreement in a written contract. I asked him about getting the interest and fees stopped. He said their agreement with CAP1 on this account was to serve as collections only. He was more than happy to collect on the account, but I should contact CAP1 and request the interest be dropped and late fees shut down. I said I'd look for some agreement to review in the mail. I then called CAP1 recovery, and they told me that they have "nothing" to do with the account any longer. It is in the hands of NCO. I told the woman that if that was true, then why on earth would NCO claim that interest, etc was up to CAP1? This was a recovery manager for CAP1, and she seemed quite confused about this particular account. I asked her twice who owns the account and she replied CAP1 does. The discussion remained cordial, and I told her I'd keep calling until I received an answer that made some sense to me as a consumer. Next, I called NCO back and spoke to the same person. By the end of this call, he was convinced that I should keep calling CAP1 until I spoke to someone who had a better sense of how the account was being handled. Parts of this conversation were quite amusing with a lot of WTF's between both the collector and myself, with regards to CAP1. He finally stated that he thought my best course of action is to go back to the beginning in the CAP1 hardship department and see what they have to say, and ask that department if they can call back the account from NCO. I don't know if he meant "hardship" or "recovery." However, he didn't seem all that upset about CAP1 taking the account back from them. We even shared a few laughs about the entire bizarre process. I'll try CAP1 again today! I'm even drafting a letter to CAP1 explaining this situation in detail. I do not intend to send any money to anyone until I get a few more answers. My question? Now what, you grand gurus of creditnet? Again, I'm not concerned about SOL, credit, etc at this point. I don't even have the sense that anyone is willing to rush to a lawsuit.
Wow, that was fast. I called Cap1 a few moments ago, and finally broke off enough rungs on the ladder to get to a higher level supervisor. While the gentleman seemed convinced that they could do nothing about the interest, I did tell him that NCO stated this was, in fact, Cap1's call. (By the way, I don't think NCO was pulling any wool over my eyes, as they also know I live in a state with a very consumer-oriented branch of the AG's office, and of course, they clearly know I'm not beyond recording phone calls.) After a bit more discussion, CAP1 agreed to "request" the account be brought back in-house and I should contact their recover office in 7 - 10 days. After thinking about all of this, it makes sense that creditors would not have a general policy to "make deals" with consumers, or everyone would want a "deal." But, I do believe that once the OC clearly recognizes your plight, via info you submit or info sent by a good debt settlement company, they can get their money and not have to "share it" with collections. I'll admit that I would probably have saved more (money and future credit) by going through a sound settlement company, but I was quite "naive" when I started down this path so many months ago.
