CITIBANK has passed my debts to a CA..I called the CA and they told me they would take every negative off and put paid as agreed if I paid the full 900.00..I told her I would give 700.00 but she said they would then have to put paid settlement..I know they can put whatever they want if they want to..Since this is my first offer should I: 1 keep persuading for 700.00 and get it cleared or take the offer.. 2 Or should I validate,but it is only a 1 year old account.. 3 Wait another year and then negociate with them..I'm in no hurry, and think I can get it validated or at least they will settle for a less amount.. Everyone let me know which you would do.. Thankx
#1: Don't ever call a CA #2: Don't ever call a CA #3: Don't ever call a CA Repetetive, I know, but true! I would never offer to pay anything without the CA validating first. How much is this debt for? Who is the CA? I'm dealing with that situation right now with Citi, but I'm outside SOL, and you are inside of SOL, so you will deal with this differently. But, with me, I validate with the CAs. When they can't or won't validate, they inevitably pass the buck. I am currently sending a goodwill to Citi begging them to let me pay them and remove the tradeline. They've done it for other posters, so hopefully, they will do it for me. Give some more info surrounding the debt and hopefully we can lead you in the right direction. I highly encourage reading the FAQ for Newbies before attempting anything!
Read my butt off for days and days..My CA is American Recover System..The lady was nice on the phone kinda..You are hoping to get everything positive if you pay your bill, well I can get it all positive if I pay the full..That's my decision to wait and see if I can get it from 900.00 to 700.00 and still have my CR positive..I feel this is all good for me, but I can validate it, but that may piss them off..Thank You for the reply..
I'm tempted to say "who cares if you piss them off?" It's a business decision for them; nothing more. The CA gets a commission on how much you pay, so they hold out for the full 900 bucks. Maybe by you validating, they will realize you aren't intimidated by them, either: it can work both ways. At any rate, if they believe you are serious about holding out on them, they will probably settle on your terms, since $900 isn't enough to sue you over and the difference in commission between collecting on $700 and $900 can't be that big. If it's worth it to you to wait a while for $200, I'd bet they'll cave. My experience was that the closer the SOL date, the lower the settlement offer was from the CA. Of course, it being only $200 works both ways as well: if you are trying to quickly get your credit into shape, $200 seems a small price to pay.
Remember this little fact... An agreement with a CA on what they report to a CRA has no bearing on what the OC will report to the CRA. In otherwords, you aren't buying what you think are by paying off this CA. The OC is still going to ding you on your credit report. Of course the CA won't tell you this!
I hope by postive, you a referring to deletion. Many times, what a CA thinks is positive (ie paid in full or settled) is flawed. It doesn't matter if it's paid or not, a collection is still a collection and weighs the same. If you aren't going for a mortgage soon, and don't need to have all collections paid, I would definitley start validating. By not validating, you are giving up your legal rights and simply letting a CA walk all over you. The odds of you getting violations during the validation is what is going to help you get a betterl settlement amount in the case of the actually validating. Don't worry about pissing them off. Do, the validation, do it now. And no matter how nice they are on the phone, remember that they are most likely recording and are trying to get you to hang yourself. Don't talk to them on the phone ever again.
Take cable666's advise. Just because you settle with the CA, does not mean the OC won't leave negative marks. I had a judgement, that I would pay provided they deleted all negative information pertaining to this account. I found out after sending payment, that CA's can only remove their negative remarks. I sent a copy of the settlement offer to the CA's vice president. I told him that under the ACT of Agency (thank you bbeaur) that they were making an offer on behalf of the OC. He said that even though they don't normally do it, he would contact the OC to have the account removed from my credit reports. Just a side thought. If you are still within the SOL and it is your bill. Why not meet them in the middle and offer settlement with full deletion. (OC and CA) tix
