Hello everyone, I have been reading the board for quite some time and I am finally trying to convert myself from being a "newbie." Unfortunately, due to various different circumstances related to my commission based position and ultimately losing my job, I fell into quite a bit of debt. It was all in credit cards and student loans. In credit cards I have about $20,315.00, all of which has been charged off by the creditors. I just finished paying off my student loans so I am clear there. I chose the route of settling my debt as I was unemployed. I was involved in a car accident and my car was totaled. Luckily, my family has an extra vehicle I have been able to use so I chose to use some of the money I received from my car insurance co. to settle my credit card debt. My highest balance card was $10,115 with BofA. This was sent to a CA and I reached a settlement agreement with them of $3,200 over 4 payments (pretty good if I say so myself! ). The last payment was just made so this card has been taken care of. The one problem with this is that I reached this settlement prior to discovering this forum so I was not aware that I could negotiate the remarks that would result on my credit report. Looking back at the settlement paperwork I have, the letter states that the account will be closed as "Settlement in Full." I know this will have an obvious negative impact on my credit score, but I am assuming it is too late to do anything about it as I already agreed to the settlement and finished making my payments. Is there anything else I can/should do with this particular account? In the mean time, I have negotiated with the two other firms representing the two credit cards remaining. I have been able to negotiate with the CA for CapitalOne for a settlement of $2,500 on a $3,500 balance (they had sent prelim paperwork to sue) and with the CA for Citi on a $3,500 settlement on a $6,700 balance. My main question is what should I do/ask/send the CA in order to negotiate how this settlement will be reported to the credit bureus? I already have one settlement in full due to the BofA card but I wanted to see if there is anyway to have these reflected differently/better on my credit report. Also, and this should probably be a separate post, what would be the best way to begin building my credit again? I understand it will be difficult with 3 settlements on my report.. Any and all help would be appreciated! Thank you very much and I think it is absolutely wonderful what goes on in this forum..
Since you already settled with BOA, you can always try disputing through the CRAs something that's inaccurate or missing in regards to how the account is listed on your credit reports. You may just get lucky. For the other accounts, you will likely have to pay in full if you want to have any chance of getting the accounts removed from your reports. It certainly doesn't hurt to start off lower, but don't hold your breath. One of our senior members here, ccbob, has suggested to others in the past that you ask the CA to hold the account and the terms of your settlement agreement in confidence (non-disclosure). So, if you dispute the account after you pay it, they will not be able to respond per their non-disclosure agreement with you. The CRA will then have to delete it from your reports. Sounds logical enough to me. Once you handle this situation, start building your credit by looking into getting a secured card and focusing on rebuilding a good payment history. If you have a friend or relative who can add you as an authorized user on one of their credit cards in good standing, that should help give your scores a boost as well.
Bob's method works pretty well on most occasions. Allows them to collect while still honoring their subscription contracts with the CRA's.
Thank you very much for your response! Is there a particular/standard form or letter I should use for this Non-Disclosure Agreement? I looked through the sample letters area and didn't see anything. Thanks again!
I've never seen any kind of non-disclosure agreement letter or form but that certainly don't mean you can't find one somewhere. Might try a search on google to see what might come up. I've helped draft quite a few but the way we normally go at it is to let the defendant's lawyer make up the settlement letter then if we find anything we want added to it or deleted from it we negotiate those points to a final agreement. There is a big advantage to doing it that way which is that if they drafted the agreement and later violate their own agreement they are in a much, much worse position than they would be if we used a standard form and got them to agree to ours. Since we have never seen any defendant violate their settlement agreements I suppose it might not be the most important factor in the event the agreement did end up getting violated.by the defendants. >br/> The nice part about it is that the settlement agreements are always ratified by the court and supervised by the court for 60 days so that compliance by the defendant is sort of guaranteed by the court. We did have one case in which the defendant agreed to the terms and conditions of the contract then failed to pay up so my student went to court and complained about their refusal to comply. The judge ordered them into court for the following Tuesday but once that happened my student had his check before Tuesday rolled around and so the matter was settled for good.
