Hello, I have been "stalking" this board for more than a year now and is finally time for me to seek some help! I had huge business loses (90K) that are now reflected as 8 credit card charge off's. This business losses were compounded by a previous job loss. I was deciding wether to file for BK 7 based on my salary after accepting a low paying position ($40K year), but fortunately (or unfortunately?) I've just accepted a position were my yearly salary will be $80K. So now I am thinking about trying to negotiate these charge-offs. I've read that the first step is to seek validation Is this correct? I'd like to start with the 4 largest CO's, one of which is CitiCorp/ Mastercard. They alege that I owe $18.5K, when the card had a limit of $12K!! So I guess my concern is that when I negotiate this debt, the IRS will use the $18.5 minus the payment as the "forgiven amount" (I know this document has a name, pardon my ignorance). So I guess I should try to get the "aleged" amount reduced before negotiating, right? Any advice will be welcome!
Before you start sending letters, check and see if the statute of limitations has run on them...that is, can the collection agency still take legal action to collect them, or has the sun set on them? If it hasn't, you should probably be careful about sending out letters that stir up the CAs. If the SOL has run, validation seems like a good starting point. If they cannot validate, no need to negotiate. They HAVE to remove the item. (No point in negatiating against yourself if you don't have to...) If they can validate, then you can try negotiating, if that seems like the best approach...
