Help with Credit Report?

Question

I am going over my credit report and I am paying off debts one at a time. However I was wondering what the best way to negotiate my debts. They are from 06 and all are in collection......

I am also trying to get them all removed from my credit report(Which I heard was a little hard?). I know they buy these debts at like 8 cents a dollar so should I be offering 30%? Also are there any web sites with sample letters that I could use. I appreciate everyone's opinion and ideas and thank you for your time

Answer 1

It does not really matter what they "buy" the debt at.  They have overhead and costs so you will not get them to settle for 30% with a 2 year old debt.  This is not to say that you don't have bargining power just don't expect a dramatic discount.

Since you don't seem to be disputing the debt, and they are fairly new you are not going to get much of a discount because in most cases you are still in the Statute of Limitations.  But the sooner you can pay it off the less they will usually settle for.



If you can get the money together in one(or two) payments you could offer them a lump sum payment of 40-50% and they may take it.  If you have to make payments esepcially more than a few months don't expect for them to settle for much less than 75%-80% of the debt.

When you do negotiate with them NEVER do it by phone only through the mail.  Send them a certified letter stating the following

- The Total Amount you are going to pay

- The number and amount of each payment.

- Payment will only be by Money Order

- Once paid they will remove their collection account from your credit report.

Do not sign this letter, if you do you may find your signature on other documents.  Only when you get a written agreement from them that you can agree with do you send any money.

One final thing is that if you settle for less than the debt, you are responsible for this amount on your taxes.  It is treated as Unearned income and you must report any amount over $600.  This is still cheaper than paying the entire amount, but if you forget to do this and the IRS catches up you may end up owing more.

Answer 2

If you are looking to get some help in dealing with creditors you might want to check out this link

http://www.easy-creditcard.com/credit-ca...

There a few good tips in this page....good luck