I have an old Capital One (February 2005) charge off. In the past four and a half years, they have been adding monthly late penalties and fees. I offered to settle for the original outstanding balance, which is 244.00$. I made the offer in writing. They refuse to deal with me in writing, however, but kept asking me to call. After a couple calls, some of them quite hostile on their part, they have offered to settle for 376.00$-- instead of the 800 some dollars they are claiming I owe. I asked as a condition of settling if they would delete the item from my credit reports. To this, they refuse. They are telling me federal law will now allow them to delete this item from my credit reports. From what I've read on this site, that seems to be nonsense. They gave me until Oct. 30 to accept or reject the $376 settlement offer. They said they will make the settlement offer in writing if I remove the cease and desist status from the account. A few questions. 1. Is it or is it not true that they are not legally allowed to delete the item from my credit report as part of the settlement offer? 2. Are they making me a good offer, relatively speaking? 3. How much will settling improve my credit score? In other words, is it worth it? 4. Is their request that I remove the cease and desist order some sort of trick? In the past three months, with the help of this site, I've raised my score over 150 points, but it is still below 700. I'd be grateful for any advice. Thank you.
It sounds like we're missing some information here. You sent them a "cease & desist" and they contacted you anyway? 1) I don't know if it's "illegal" per se, but they're not supposed to do it. While they can't go to the CRA and say "oops, this was a mistake, this never should have been on his report, please remove it", they can certainly agree to "forget" to verify the information when you dispute with the CRA. So long story short, they are by no means obligated to delete it from your credit history. 2) How "good" the offer is is subjective and up to you. Is $376 worth it to know they can no longer sue you and to take care of a debt (assuming the debt is yours, legit, etc)? 3) As far as I know (and NOBODY knows for sure, since the actual formulas behind FICO are closely-guarded trade secrets), a paid delinquency scores the same as an open delinquency. However, FICO isn't everything. If you go for a car loan or mortgage, they may look more favorably on a settled-very-late entry than a still-delinquent entry. Short answer, probably. 4) Tell us about this cease & desist. How long ago did you send it? Was it sent certified? What did you say? Did you contact them after sending it? Was it sent to this CA or some other one?
This is the problem when you go sending cease & desist letters. If you send a cease and desist, they have two choices--leave you alone, or sue you. So yes, you need to revoke the cease and desist. Never send a full cease and desist. Use the words from the FDCPA the it is inconvenient for you to receive calls at any time at any number. (Of course, this doesn't apply to original creditors.) Otherwise you're asking for a lawsuit. That's the reason they insisted that you call. You can contact them, but they cannot contact you once you sent a cease & desist, unless it's to serve you with a lawsuit.
Sparq, Thank you. You've been very helpful. To answer your question about the Cease and Desist, I don't remember telling Cap One to Cease & Desist. They said I gave them official C&D notice on the telephone in Feb. of 2005. I don't recall that. They never claimed I sent a C&D letter. That I had said to them on the phone, and that they had apparently complied, was news to me. I am not worried about them suing me for the outstanding balance, which is now about 900$. But the original balance is 240$ something. It's purportedly 900 now b/c they have been and continue to add monthly late fees. (Incidentally, is there any way I can get them to stop adding the monthly late fees?) My main concern is the credit score. If paying won't help my credit score, I see no reason to do so. Again, thanks.
