When You Hit 180 Days Settlement Offers Start Flying

[ryan]

As many have said on BF when you hit about 6 months CC's start offering settlement offers....and that's what I'm getting (2 on the same day!)
In my mail was:

BofA offers 30% on a 10K plus debt.

Chase offers 40% on a similar sized debt.

Discover offers 70% on a larger amount.

Citi offers discount by letter, but must call to find out how much.

also, along with these letters are threats to sue in some cases.
--carrot and stick I guess.

[DYLAN150]

Do they mean settlement by cash? Heck, if a person can't make the payments where are they suppose to get that much cash from?

[flyinbroke]

Do they mean settlement by cash? Heck, if a person can't make the payments where are they suppose to get that much cash from?

That is what I said to the Citi lady who was quite nice. They offered a 48 percent settlement; I said if I had that much spare money I would not have a need for settling since I would still be paying. She laughed. She offered up a few options, but I said unless I can defer till September (money will be mroe stable) I could not consider at this time. She said unfortunately she was not approved to do more (as expected) and this could go to a CA or a law firm. My bet is on CA. And they are easy pickins' actually.

I am approaching 180 on BoA and have received nothing beyond the monthly bill and a letter saying they received my C&D and would cease contact...I sent one back saying mail and email was fine. grrr. Also GE Money will hit 180 in about two weeks and I got no offers from them at all. However since their hired gun CA messed up huge in violations, they will be hearing from me.....

[GoingDown]

At charge off, my credit cards offered meager settlements and always contained the veiled threat of "legal action" and stated that it would be in my best interest to take care of this matter "voluntarily" before it was "too late" to do so. And the calls on the answering machine said that the "case file was on my desk and about to leave my office" so call back right away.

None of them at that point sued.

And most of them sold off the debts to junk debt buyers. At first they played hard ball and demanded 100%, but years later, some of them offered huge discounts if I wanted to settle the ancient worthless accounts. The longer you go the steeper the discounts, because they don't expect to get anything at a certain point.

[researchmode]

Does a 35% settlement offer (for example) mean that you only pay them 35% of what you owe them ($35 per $100) or does it mean that they discount what you owe by 35% so then you'd only owe 65% of the debt?

[ryan]

Does a 35% settlement offer (for example) mean that you only pay them 35% of what you owe them ($35 per $100) or does it mean that they discount what you owe by 35% so then you'd only owe 65% of the debt?

Researchmode: It means you pay only 35% of the debt.

Of course over the months of nonpayment the debt has risen, but its still a considerable discount.
Discover card runs the debt up so fast, that it would take an even bigger discount to offset that, and ironically they have offered the smallest discount.