I have overdue tuition from about 3 years ago that is currently with a collection agency. I made the mistake of sending them "good faith" payments as I hadn't learned how collections work yet. Now I know not to settle for anything but a negotiated single amount, but that doesn't help here since I have already messed up. The debt is down to $1500, and I could pay it off in full now. However, I'd rather negotiate the amount down, ideally getting the debt deleted from my credit report. I already did a DV and they satisfied it. Would it be ok send them a settlement offer letter? I've never stated that the debt is mine, and the statements they mail to me every month say they don't have a payment agreement with me but they'll accept my monthly payment. *Caveat - my credit report is monitored by a 3rd party doing an employment background check on me, so I have to mitigate this item. That means I can't just let it fall off or invoke statute of limitations on it.
If you've been making payments every month, I doubt they're going to accept any sort of settlement at this point. You might want to offer paying the balance in full to remove any negative marks from your credit report. If you have the cash, it could be worth it to just get it taken care of once and for all.
Most likely, I decided that it was worth a shot and sent them an offer letter for a Pay for Delete. At the same time, I'm getting a secured loan for the full amount to pay them off with and to build my credit back up(pay history + diversification ).
