Hello Everyone, I just discovered this great resource this week and so far, been up until the wee hours of the morning reading and reading ;-) Can I get your advice on my situation ? In 1999, I was sick for several months and subsequently lost my job. Things were rough for a while. My Cap 1 card with a bal $311 went delinquent and was charged off. I contacted them last week to make arrangements to pay this off and was shocked to find out that the $311 had now grown to $1014.00 ! The collection rep was very nice and even though I explained that I had been sick and then unemployed and wanted to pay these back now that my situation is more solid, here're the offers I got: first offer : a settlement of $689 which she claims will be marked as "settled" on my credit report and that this notation looks bad to other possible creditors. offer 2: pay off the full $1014 and after it's paid, Cap 1 would issue me a card with a bal between $200-2000. I want to pay Cap1 but as a single mom doing the best I can with what I have, t paying 4 times what I owed 30 months ago hurts. What would you guys do ? Do you think it might be possible to negotiate with Cap 1 to remove some of those steep charges/interests they have tacked on to this account ? BTW, since contacting them last week, they have updated my credit report to show that I now owe them $1009 [where before it was listed at $900+ for several months] Ama
One option you have is to contact Mr. Cooke, who is the consumer advocate for C1. He's a very helpful guy. You can write him through www.planetfeedback.com . If anyone can offer you a better settlement offer, it's him.
I don't know, all they could probably offer would be settled less than full balance, settled zero balance. I've heard and been experiencing your same situation. They are NOT budging, you may get an R5 status, somewhat better.
Re: Newbie, Need Advice re Capitol Thanks for your responses Mindcrime and Premo. I went ahead and did planetfeedback as suggested. I'll keep you all posted on developments. Followup question: Does a "settled" notation really prevent one from getting new credit ? I read on some board [can't remember which now] that "settled" is much better than "paid collection" so now I'm totally confused. I'm going to do a search here to see if there are any threads explaining the different notations. I think this would be very useful to know while attempting to negotiate.
Re: Newbie, Need Advice re Capitol A "settled" notation is negative. It means the consumer was unable to meet their financial obligation to the creditor. It's not that it will necessarily prevent you from getting new credit, it's just that it will keep you from getting a prime card, or a "more" prime-like card than if you did not have that negative on your report at all. "settled" on a collection account is actually worse than a "paid" statement on a collection account. THe bottom line is, you don't want any trace of the collection account on your report at all.
