What is my legal recourse if I accept a written settlement offer from a collection agency (JDB)?

Question

What is my legal recourse if I accept the written offer by making the requested payment within the time frame of the offer, and then they sell the remaining debt to another agency or attempt to pursue legal action. Should I write a letter to them first stating that I will accept these terms provided they release to me a settled and closed letter upon verification of payment? I only have fourteen days to do this.

Answer 1

yes that sounds like a great ideal!!! also in the letter indicate that you are in agreement with there terms and are ready to make the payment schedule!!!

Answer 2

You can just call and ask how they handle it. They usually do provide such a letter once they get your payment, although they may not send it immediately. Sometimes they send out all of their letters of this type only once a month. It costs them less to do it this way, and they don't really care that it's inconvenient to you.

Meanwhile, you do have it in writing that your payment will settle the debt. If they did sell it later, you could just send a copy of the letter and your payment to the new agency.

It's not legal to sell a settled debt, anyway, so it's not likely that they'd do this. If they did, you could sue them for damages and maybe get more than you ever owed. Not worth it to them to risk that.

If it helps, I did something like this once. I owed Macy's and when I finally called to ask where to pay off their card, it was in collections. I called the collection agency, and the first thing the guy said to me was they'd settle if I'd pay half the amount on the card that day. No penalties, no interest and I only had to pay half what I charged? It sounded too good to be true, but I confirmed it, did it, and they sent the payment confirmation the next month.

Now, the fact that it's settled for less than the full amount does go on your credit record, but if you have lots of other creditors to pay, hey, it's what works best for you.

Oh, one last thing about Macy's. They're so desperate for people to buy things, they offered to reinstate the card if I'd pay in full in 90 days. Still no interest or penalties, just what I'd charged. This is a fair option and it would look better on a credit report to pay in full, but it just blew me away that they even made the offer.