I've never really posted the story of my Discover account here, but I've talked about it a little. To summarize it in a few sentences, I've had the account for over 10 years and about four years ago I stopped making regular payments on the account. The fees and interest took a maxed out $1,000 card to an over $2,000 balance. In March when I found this board I realized how nuts I've been and I've begun to pay it down. As of this month, I had it down to around $800. I think it was MiamiBlues on the board here that posted his Discover saga that led me to email him offline. He told me his whole story and gave me the name and address of someone at Discover who helped him out. I wrote to his contact last month. I wrote him a three page letter explaining what happened with the account and asking if he could assist. I told him my goal was to pay off the account in a manner that might allow them to reopen it for me, even if with a tiny credit limit so I could rebuild an account relationship. I still haven't heard anything back from Discover, but I just called them a few minutes ago to see if my statement had closed for the month. To my surprise there are three $20 credits and two $15 credits on my account dated June 6th. These bring my balance to just over $700. The system still says my available credit is zero dollars, so the account must still be closed. Now I'm really anxious to see how Miami's contact responds to me by mail. I'm sure these credits have to be his doing, and I wonder if that's all he's going to do (which is still fantastic) or if they are going to make me an offer to reopen. I can pay the $700 at any time but I am planning to do it over the rest of the year to establish some positive payment history.
DaveLV, THe account is closed but not charged off right? Are they doing some type of rehabilitation of your trade line or are they sticking to their rules? I hated dealing with my past credit card accounts because they would not negotiate with me at all, until they were charged off for non payment. Then I had collectors willing to negotiate, but the cc was still unwilling to change anything on my trade line. Now in my case, they never saw a single penny, all because of their unwillingness to negotiate. I ended up getting the tradeline removed. I won and they lost, but that was not what I really wanted. It is a shame that they are so close minded. I wish you the best of luck!!
Well -- like I said I haven't officially heard from them yet. I know I've tried calling before and writing and I've never gotten any kind of response from them. This time it looks like I at least got someone's attention. When I get written correspondence from them I'll let everyone know what's going on.
