The BS Settlement Offers From CC Companies

[ryan]

(I have no interest in settling at this stage with any of my CC's but I did find this interesting):

Yesterday I received a letter with a settlement offer from a CA for Discover. Haven't made payments for a year. The letter tries to portray the offer as a great deal, EXCEPT here's the real numbers:

(altered for privacy) Amount owed (according to them) $15,500.
Settlement Offer: $9500 ....so about 60% of debt, right?

WRONG.

Thats not the final debt amount at all! Its actually $12,700! by my calculations.
All the OC did was run the clock and kept the acct open for 6 months to pile on fees, 30% interest and penalties like you wouldn't believe..

They treat debt settlement offers like a car dealer jacks up the price only to discount it back down to make a deal! lol BUYER(DEBTOR) BEWARE

[Freddy03]

(I have no interest in settling at this stage with any of my CC's but I did find this interesting):

Yesterday I received a letter with a settlement offer from a CA for Discover. Haven't made payments for a year. The letter tries to portray the offer as a great deal, EXCEPT here's the real numbers:

(altered for privacy) Amount owed (according to them) $15,500.
Settlement Offer: $9500 ....so about 60% of debt, right?

WRONG.

Thats not the final debt amount at all! Its actually $12,700! by my calculations.
All the OC did was run the clock and kept the acct open for 6 months to pile on fees, 30% interest and penalties like you wouldn't believe..

They treat debt settlement offers like a car dealer jacks up the price only to discount it back down to make a deal! lol BUYER(DEBTOR) BEWARE

I got a similar offer from Cap One.

[Bell30656]

Of course you agreed to all those penalties and fees when you began using the card. Actually, they were within their rights to keep charging fees until the debt was paid. The fine print on the things we agree to is pretty crazy but who reads that stuff anyway?

[BrokeIn2010]

I got one of those offers on a GE Money Bank card: 90% lump-sum "pay off", plus their attorney's fees, plus "processing fees", plus tax-liability, and they'd drop the case. When I added it all up, I would "settling" the debt at 120% of what they were suing for. I countered offered with 25% of the total debt owed, no attorney fees, no processing fees, and I'd eat (without dispute) the remaining 75% in the tax liability; I also so pointed out that we were completely covered by TN exemptions and we had no bank accounts, and the debt was mine so they couldn't get anything out of the wife's paycheck, so if they got a judgement it'd be worthless and vacated in my Bankruptcy, so it was in their interest to take something over nothing. So far I haven't heard back from them.

On the opposite side: Cap. 1 is suing my mother, her attorney has been trying to get them to set up a payment plan and settle it for the original debt, minus legal fees and they're still set to take her to court next week.

[lovemybugs10]

I'm going through the process of settling my debts. I refuse to negotiate off of anything but the original balance.


Citi has added 15k in interest and fees in the past year or so. I settled with discover for 40% and already had an offer from boa of 40 of the original, so I'm going to try to push them lower.

[wonderingrov]

I got a few of those settlement offers after just about 90 days of nonpay on a couple of my cards. Of course, in my case, the details of my final 'settlement offer' are in my sig line...