Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? I've been reading this board for awhile, and I need a bit of advice. I have secured enough money to roughly pay off (at about 55% settlement) all of the debt (either charged off or refered to collection) on my accounts. I have three offers that the companies said were final. They are 40% settlement for chase, 60% settlement for sears, and a 55% settlement for discover. Before sending the money, I wonder if I should be doing something else. I've tried to get them to indicate they would mark my account as paid (over the phone, then with a follow up fax), but they will only indicate something like "paid for less than full value". I am clueless when it comes to negotiating with these folks on the phone, and it seems they will not budge. Should I try an alternative approach, or simply pay the money and plan to do some post-settled work?
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Having a collection or charge off acct listed as paid will do you no good. It is no better than it showing as unpaid as far as score goes. You are in the drivers seat on this as you have the money and they want the money. Demand and accept nothing less than deletion of the accts for payment. I would send them letters stating exactly that. Do a search here for "settlement letters" or " pay for deletion" letters. You should find some samples you can work from.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Negotiating on the phone seems to do no good. Will letters have a better effect? What do I do if/when they say they don't accept the offer? What is my next approach? Also, how do I find out who to send them to? The only thing I've been saying is that I can either use the money to file bankruptcy or use the money to settle this debt, but always on the phone. I need an approach with a little more "guts" behind it.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? you need to order your credit reports and see who is reporting the debts.... that is who you will contact. You should request validation of all collection accounts before offering any settlement... why??? because if they cannot validate, they cannot "prove" that you owe the money..... You should list the creditors / collection agencies that you are dealing with here( or do a search for them) to see how others have handled them.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? The creditors are Chase, Discover, and Sears. However, when I called chase, they said that they "sold" the account to Consolidation USA. When I called them, they gave me a number for a different "branch" in New Orleans or somewhere down south. The other two, Discover and Sears are the original creditors, and still have the accounts in charge-off state.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? You are in pretty rough shape here indeed. All of these are pretty high cards and are indeed tough creditors to deal with. You are indeed lucky that Chase sold it to Consolidation and what you would hope for is the other two would do the same but that is unlikely with Sears. They are known to fight their debtors all the way through the courts in just about evey case. So were I in your shoes I would be starting now to prepare yourself with the knowledge and expertise necessary to go in after the judgment and hope to win on a motion to vacate void judgment and hope that the judgment they get will be a void judgment. One can never count on a judgment being null and void upon it's face no matter what you may be lead to believe. And simply because it does happen to turn out to be a legal nullity does not mean that it will be easy to get voided. It may be and then it may be a real bear to deal with and that will mostly depend on the state and the judge involved. In some states it can be easy and in others an impossibility. I have a fair idea of the tough ones but nothing concrete except for the state of Kansas where you might just as well forget it. I'd plan on saving up the money to pay Sears off before judgment time and fight the other two.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Sears offered a 60% settlement, which I can actually pay now. But reading this board implies that paying the settlement is ill-advised. They are not willing to indicate that the account is paid. They are willing to indicate that it's "paid for less than full value." The other thing I'm considering is trying to negotiate that if I pay full value, erasing the entire trade line. Does Sears do this? I don't think they'd do it for less than full value, but I was thinking they might do it if they got all of their money (almost $4000).
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Personally I would try to slip the Westcap endorsement past them first and if that don't work then just check with an attorney in your area to see if a judge would go along with the idea that if they refused to accept payment in full they lost their right to collect at all. If a good lawyer will tell you that if they refused a bank certified check for payment in full they could not collect a crying dime and of course if you do it right you would have them over a barrel because they would not likely be able to prove there was anything wrong with the check they refused. You will have to be awfully tricky with them and I'd suggeest you let me help you with this one by email so you get it done right. Don't worry about the cost because the whole deal would cost you maybe $10 or $12 photocopies, postage and all. Me included. You can go ahead and do it safely but if push comes to shove you might want to talk to a lawyer just to see where you stand before you start pushing.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Quite simply I have the westcap endorsement on a rubber stamp. You would go through the process of getting the check made out, getting a photocopy made for your records then send it to me and I will stamp the check with the westcap endorsement and send it to wherever it has to go from here by certified mail and send you the postal receipt and the green card and a photocopy of the check after it has the westcap endorsement. You would get the green card from the post office, they get the certified mail with the check and that's about it. The stamp cost me $40 so you would save about $30 over having to spend a week getting the stamp made and then maybe only using it once or twice in your entire life. The next time you needed it the ink would probably be all dried out and the stamp useless from old age. If you want to do that let me know by private email and I'll give you my mailing address and full step by step instructions for doing it.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Would this be for the full amount, or for the offered 60% settlement? I'd like to see the instructions, you can send them to the email listed in my profile. I'm a little weary of sending a check right now, but I can get over that.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? If you have it in writing that they will accept some amount lesser than the full amount then I suppose that it would be OK to send it for that amount. Sorry, it is against my policy to send emails to anyone unless it is in response to their having emailed me. If you are weary a good nites sleep usually takes care of the problem.(LOL)
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? What I have in writing is that Sears will accept 60% and mark my account as "paid for less than full amount". I sent them a fax that offered the 60% for them to mark the account as "paid in full", but they would not sign it and return it. Then, I started writing questions to this board
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Sears is generally pretty tough to deal with from what most are saying here on the board and in other forums as well. If they actually are as tough as their reputation would seem to have it then I would imagine that even though they cashed the check they would still refuse to honor the contract and make you sue them to get anywhere and then would fight you all the way through court. I would imagine they would try to claim that no human being ever agreed to it because their checks are all run through an automatic stamping machine for endorsement and are not reviewed for such endorsements. I'd bet they would win too unless the check was accompanied by a cover letter containing the same endorsement stamp so they could not complain that they had not seen it. I'm no expert but I believe that a determined creditor who really wanted to maintain their stance at all costs would be able to come up with some trick or other to convince a judge that they were not liable unless you had a previous hand signed agreement to accept and comply prior to sending the check. I would tend to think that most creditors would not go that far. I'll bet not one in a hundred would be willing to fight to the death over it but I would also tend to think that Sears just might be that exception. I really don't know. I'm just guessing based on the fact that no one has yet reported any failures when doing it, but I have almost no reports and maybe a dozen at best who have used the method. So as far as I am concerned up to now, what would happen is anybody's guess.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? So, if I have to pursue them in court, won't the legal fees wipe me out?
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Probably. But then on the other hand you might try it and if they don't comply you send them a threatening letter and a copy of the back side of the check, tell them to comply or you will sue them for breach of contract and if they tell you to do it just chalk it up to experience or whatever. Just because you threaten don't mean you actually have to do it. And who knows, they might just decide to do it and not hassle about it. You never know till you try.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Bill, I've read several threads here that if you threaten to sue and you don't sue then the creditor can sue you for harrasment. Am I missing something?
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? Yes, you are. What you are missing is that I don't bluff them. I mean what I say and if they don't believe it then just let them continue to ignore me and I will prepare my own case and I will go file it and I will take it to whatever the conclusion might be. And if I have to appeal an adverse decision I am already set to do that too. I used to have to hope they never called my bluff. Now it makes me no difference whatever. They want to ignore my threat to sue then fine. They will learn the hard way that it was'nt a bluff at all. And its not going to be some silly small claims court either. It will be US Federal District Court with Jury trial demanded every time.
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? I know you don't bluff, but some of the post here claim that bluffing is considered harrasment. Is is safe to use the threaten to sue tactic and only be bluffing? Any thoughts?
Do I pay COs now, or negotiate more? The law says they can't do that but it don't say the consumer can't do it. That which is not forbidden under the law is permitted.
