"Legally settled for less than full balance"

I've had the exact same problem with an old Amex Blue card I used to have. It was a thousand dollar balance which I settled for five hundred something or other and it says settled for less than full amount.

I'm not sure how Discover does it, but after many lenghty calls to various departments with Amex, this is what I have learned.

Once you settle with Amex, all bets are off. You're on their internal blacklist. If I paid off the full amount originally, I could have qualified for their Oasis program, but since I settled that's it. They don't want to talk to me anymore. I do have the option of paying the difference off to American Express directly, but that just changes the status of my account as "Collection Paid In Full." It sticks on my reports.

Personally I'm going to go with the goodwill letter route. I'm pretty much screwed with getting a line of credit from them in the future (they pretty much keep the most stringent blacklists I know of regardless of your credit rating... screw them once and they'll screw you forever) unless my credit score gets to like 850 or something absurd like that. So the best shot I have is to just ask them politely.

I'm not sure how Discover works, but that's just my two cents. I hope it helps and provides some insight somehow.

 

How much effect is it having on your scores?

The settlement is 4 years old. It goes off your reports 7.5 years after the original delinquency date, not the settlement date. If you settled for 50%, it must have had some age already when you settled. How old was the original delinquency?

 

I just got one of those deleted off my credit report from Paragon Way. I just disputed on-line with TU that "creditor agreed to removed after payment", they never disputed it so it is gone. I hope this helps.