Question about credit card settlement
Date: Sat, 03/02/2013 - 12:23
Question about credit card settlement
Hi,
My name is Adam and I have a question about doing a settlement with a closed credit card account that I have. I currently have an account with HSBC that I owe $3045.85 on. The account has been closed for quite some time now. Over a year at least. I made my last payment on 11/23/2012. I finally called in today after reading over some things. I asked to see if I could talk about settlements. The guy was nice and he said they actually mailed out a letter 2 days ago. He said tat the letter states the settlement is for 2100 which is about 70%. From reading on this site, I did not set it up because I want to have it in writing first with the letter. I asked if they could go any lower, and he said no since I am only 60 days past due. I found that odd being that my last payment was November of last year. This is where my questions come in. Since he said that, does that mean that if I wait longer, the settlement might get better? I am going to keep negotiating of course. I have seen some instances on this site where people actually state that being put into collections might be an ok idea because you can generally do a better settlement offer with them. My credit does stink, about 570, but I really don't want it to go any lower by going into collections. So will going into collections affect my score that much more? And I heard that doing a settlement also can affect your credit score, if so, how much does it affect the score? Lastly, I have always thought that paying off that account would increase my score since I would have less debt, and I do have some other cards with a credit utilization of about 60%, which I am diligently working to lower that amount. I have also read some things that paying off that account would not affect my credit score. Is that true? Of course I want to pay it to be over and done with, but I would also love to see the benefit of raising my credit score as well.
Thanks in advance for any input!
My name is Adam and I have a question about doing a settlement with a closed credit card account that I have. I currently have an account with HSBC that I owe $3045.85 on. The account has been closed for quite some time now. Over a year at least. I made my last payment on 11/23/2012. I finally called in today after reading over some things. I asked to see if I could talk about settlements. The guy was nice and he said they actually mailed out a letter 2 days ago. He said tat the letter states the settlement is for 2100 which is about 70%. From reading on this site, I did not set it up because I want to have it in writing first with the letter. I asked if they could go any lower, and he said no since I am only 60 days past due. I found that odd being that my last payment was November of last year. This is where my questions come in. Since he said that, does that mean that if I wait longer, the settlement might get better? I am going to keep negotiating of course. I have seen some instances on this site where people actually state that being put into collections might be an ok idea because you can generally do a better settlement offer with them. My credit does stink, about 570, but I really don't want it to go any lower by going into collections. So will going into collections affect my score that much more? And I heard that doing a settlement also can affect your credit score, if so, how much does it affect the score? Lastly, I have always thought that paying off that account would increase my score since I would have less debt, and I do have some other cards with a credit utilization of about 60%, which I am diligently working to lower that amount. I have also read some things that paying off that account would not affect my credit score. Is that true? Of course I want to pay it to be over and done with, but I would also love to see the benefit of raising my credit score as well.
Thanks in advance for any input!
Not so quickly
I wouldn't settle that quickly. If they started at 70%, my guess is they will dome down. I wouldn't get serious about thinking to do it til they were at about 50% in their offer.
credit score
there is no benefit to paying collections accts unless you want to clear them up and not have the possibility of getting sued in the future --
Credit score isn't that easy
Credit score isn't that easy to increase. Basically you need to take some smart decisions so that it gets better. As for the offer, it's a good one. You can opt for it.
There will be no benefit as
There will be no benefit as you are paying a closed and past due account.
