Collections

Hi, I have a collection agency that bought off my hospital bill. Initially the bill cost me $1K. They did not receive a single payment from me. Now, a decade later debt increased to over $5K. Not planning to pay them any time soon unless one can negotiate to buy off debt for original charge. How does one influence agency to cave in on this agreement?

If it is a Decade old the collection company cannot take it any further, it is better contact a lawyer for understanding the implication better. As for a negotiating your debt i would suggest you to take a service of a debt settlement company, if you do not have any exposure or experience in this matter.

Try the services of http://www.bills.com/debt-consolidation/ they are a reputed organization for settling debts.

I have a small collections of $79 dollars on my credit report from Experian that I wasn’t aware of until my credit union told me.

I will pay it, because I remember what happened and I do owe the money, but I don’t want it to stay on my credit report even after I’ve paid it. How can I get them to erase it?

Well, before you pay anything on it, dispute it and see if it falls off. They might not bother answering your dispute since it is such a small amount.

If you don’t want to do that, then send them the letter in my source (or another like it) and plug in your information. Offer to pay in full in exchange for them deleting the account.

If they give you the run around, think long and hard about paying them. It will not help your FICO score to pay it and they will most likely not bother suing you over such a small amount.

Is there a central website or number I can call to find out what debts I owe? I want to re-build my credit and I don’t want these debts hanging over my head any longer.

You can find the information you are looking for at : http://www.allaboutcreditreports.com/

Additionally, Suze Orman’s book Young, Fabulous & Broke is an excellent tool. You can find information about the book here: http://www.suzeorman.com/igsbase/igstemplate.cfm?SRC=SP&SRCN=yfb_login1&GnavID=21&SnavID=57&TnavID=

Yes.

To vote, you have to be on the Electoral Role i.e. the list of people Registered to vote at a particular Address.

The Electoral Roe is a ‘public’ document and is one of the main ways used to trace people.

NB. If you are not registered at the address you give, you are likley to be refused a loan / overdraft / cedit card etc.

I recently disputed an item on my Transunion report. The original creditor deleted it and 1 of the 2 collection agencies collecting for that same debt, deleted it as well. The second collection agency didn’t delete it. Can they still do that even though the original creditor deleted it? Is there a letter I can send?

Demand that they validate the debt. Write them a demand letter. Tell them that the original creditor removed the challenged item from your credit report, because it did not belong there. Demand that they do the same. Cite the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”).

Under the FDCPA, collection agencies must remove debts from the credit reports, if they are unable to “validate” them.

This means that they have to prove the validity of:

1.The original obligation (which may be hard to do, if the original creditor chose to delete the debt from the report itself)

2.The transfer of the right to collect the debt to them. It is highly unlikely that they will be able to do that, if the original creditor chose not to prove the debt itself.

Under the FDCPA, there are significant penalties and fines of up to $500,000, so they should remove the posting.

If not, report them to the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) at their website.

The FTC says that consumers can (and should be able to) successfully challenge items on their credit reports. However, it is not always so easy, as you can see for yourself.

There are reputable credit restoration services that could help you, if citing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not do the trick.

Good luck!

Someone told me the agencies normally buy these accounts for a fraction of the amount due, then collect what they can, sometimes accepting half as a payoff amount. If I had had the money, I would have paid it off originally, but right now I’m not even making it paycheck to paycheck and the collections agency will not set up monthly automatic withdrawals or anything other than the full amount. Any suggestions? I’m not debating I owe the money, just can not pay it at this time.

You sure can. In fact, you should offer them one third or one quarter first. This gives you bargaining room. I’ve successfully done this with many of my credit cards, and got 50% off most of them. You need to know how to haggle…. Lets say you owe them $2000. If I were you, my dialog might go like this:

Creditor: Hey buster, we demand all our money, which is $2000. Pay up!

Me: Sorry, but I’m flat broke, lost my job, my wife is ill, and I owe a whole bunch of other creditors so get in line! But…. if you’re willing to work with me, I can offer you $500 cash to settle the debt in full. OK?

Creditor: um, let me check with my boss…. (after a while he comes back)… My boss says we can offer you $1700 to settle, can you do that?

Me: No way. I’m thinking of filing for bankruptcy (this really scares them, because they could get nothing if I actually do that)
The most I can come up with is maybe around $700. and I’ll need to make it in 3 monthly payments…

Creditor: Let me check with my boss again (takes some more time, telling his boss of my threat to file chapter 11)…. comes back with: My boss says 1200 is the lowest we can go, and we can give you 3 months to pay…

Me: No way. How about $1000 and six months to pay? Thats the best I can do or I’ll have to go the other route…..

At this point the creditor with either accept my offer or try to stick with the $1200 figure. We could then haggle over the payment terms (I could say ok to the $1200 but only with 6-12 months to pay, etc.)

The key is to play hardball hardship. Each creditor has their own rules and usually wants to hear how bad things are for you (play it up, got medical bills, credit cards, lawsuits, etc.). This is because they will only accept a low settlement if they think they cant collect it all from you otherwise. Some of them will not even negotiate if you’ve been sending payments. I usually let them sweat it out by not answering their phone calls or making any payments for about 5-6 moths. Also, just the threat of bankruptcy is very powerful. In reality, you don’t have to do it. If they ever threaten to take you to court to get a judgement, just send a small payment ($50 would do), and if they accept it, they cant start the process over for another six months. (They cant get a judgement unless you haven’t paid anything for at least six months… then a token payment stalls the whole process.)

Also, if you don’t like their counter offer, say that you’ll think about it and get back to them… they won’t want you to hang up, especially if you don’t return their calls and have a hard time reaching you. There is no debtor’s prison, and the only resource they have is to try to collect the debt legally– a long and tedious process, and even with a judgement ther’es no guarantee they can collect unless they have your bank account numbers (and you have money in the bank too) so don’t write checks, use money orders. They also have to find out where you work if they want to garnishee, which is not easy to do and cannot be done without the judgement first.

One final word… when they accept your offer to settle, tell them to send it to you in writing and with their signature. Make sure they send you a legitimate agreement in the mail (no faxes) before you send them any payments.

Also, the amount you save in the settlement is will be reported to the IRS if it’s over $500, so you’ll have to pay income tax on that amount at years end. (they may point this out to you, to which you can reply that you can deal with that). But that’s still a very good savings overall. example: if you’re in the 28% tax bracket and you reduced the debt by $1000, the additional taxes would only be $280, so you still save $720 in cash!

The process can actually be fun, and you’ll be proud of yourself when you succeed.

Good luck.

When a debt is sold to a Debt Collection Agency (via a deed of assignment), does the Debt Collector becomes the Creditor for the purposes of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and are the rights and duties assigned? Please state court case, legislation in your answer.

after being a general adviser, on debt amongst other things, i can say that the answer is definatley yes - the debt collection agency who the debt is sold on to then become the creditor.
i cannot supply you with any legal cases on this, but you could try searching this site for relevant legislation http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/about_legislation.htm

There is a debt I have for a payday advance place and they are listed on my credit report. Also the collection agency the debt was sent to is listed on my credit report. Now I have two different items listed on there for the same exact debt. Is that legal? What should I do? And is it legal for that collection agency to not allow me to pay in full?

They are both allowed to report it, but the original creditor has to mark it as zero balance. Then if the Second one sells it, he has to mark it as zero balance etc etc

While this is a lousy practice, it does have a potential for you to challange and have it removed.

Watch the "date of last activity" on these. The DOLA starts 30 days from the last payment you made and should never change.

Collection agents like to change that date starting from the day they bought it. That is illegal, its re-aging and you need to watch for it.

I got a letter from a collections company saying I needed to contact them or my current credit score, XXX, might be negatively affected. Is that legal?
I understand that having a collections action filed against me will impact my credit score. But I thought that if a company looks up my credit score (like a credit card application), my credit can be negatively affected. So it seems like I might get hit twice here. . . since they quoted my credit score AND apparently have filed a collections claim.

When a collection agency is "shopping" for bad debts, they are allowed to access reports as a soft inquiry.

When a collection agency purchases the bad debt, they can pull a hard inquiry.

What stinks is that if they are really twisted, (if they own the debt) they will pull a hard inq. once a month (or more) Just to put the pressure on the debtor, or, more than likely, just for grins.

If so is your company hiring?

i’ve tried many work at home jobs, but never made any profit from them. thats just my experience