Got some Xmas Settlement offers today

[treehugger1]

So, today in the mail I received two very reasonable offers. One from BOA driving my interest down to zero and cutting payments in half until principle is satisfied. The other from CitiFinancial cutting the interest rate to 0 and dropping the payments from $250 per month to $93. Neither offers include a reduction in principle, so no 1099 issues. I might take them up on this. With other accounts now paid off due to garnishment, I might just swing it. If only these folks would have made these offers 18 months ago. As it is these are already default agreements on top of default agreements. Then again, I don't think anyone was quite ready for the current financial mess.

Now, I'm quite curious as to what Citi might be willing to agree to with my CC account. Currently, it has bounced around some CA's but keeps coming back to Citi. Maybe they have some new offers similar to their CitiFiancial cohort.

[magyar123]

They sound like good offers - but make sure you make your payments with money orders and not with personal checks or online revealing your banking information. If you do have a checking account with any of these two I would advise you to close them and go with a different bank.

[AngelinaCatHub]

They sound like good offers - but make sure you make your payments with money orders and not with personal checks or online revealing your banking information. If you do have a checking account with any of these two I would advise you to close them and go with a different bank.

[BigJohn]

treehugger1, how long have you not paid on these accounts? I would think they woud have sold or assigned them to other people.

[treehugger1]

BigJohn, I'll give you the short version. Citifinancial and BOA seem to not "sell" accounts for a year or so. They seem to tend to assign debt to various CA's and when the CA's can't produce results they come back in house. In my case, these accounts came within a few days of chargeoff about 18 months ago and I got offers for reduced interest from 3% - 10%. I agreed to new reduced interest accounts and five year payoffs. After 9 - 10 months with garnishment on the horizon, I defaulted on the "default agreement." Now I am approaching the next 180 days (I'm guessing that they didn't charge off the accounts the first time and a few payments reset their bookkeeping methods. So, the latest offers drive the interest down to zero with new five year contracts. They know very well that I have no checking account they can deduct payments from, but they have other payment options available (moneygram, western union, etc) that didn't exist serval months ago. I'll make the new payments and see where this goes.

On the other hand, I had a second BOA CC that charged off and they actually sold this to CACH after about 10 months. CACH sent the account to a legal firm outside of my state. I DV'd them and after 2-3 months I have received no additional information. I do not have a clue as to where this account is headed. However, I have a theory that when BOA "sells" a account to a JDB they don't forward any additional account infomration; they have washed their hands of the account. In these current hard economic conditions, i would guess that the last priority for BOA is digging up old information to satisfy a DV for an account that they sold. What do they care? They probably received $.20 on the dollar and could care less about the JDB. Both the JDB and the legal firm have pulled my credit reports. I could file for suit under the FCRA, but I think it is important that these folks pulled my report and got a realtime view of my liabilities. Only an idiot would miss the fact that I am in deep trouble with unsecured debt. They can see the collection accounts and outstanding judgments.

The big difference here is that these accounts were only assigned to collections, but obviously pulled back in house once the economy failed. I wonder if "agreements" between OC's and CA's are changing for accounts that have only been assigned. For example, If the assigned CA cannot produce any results within a particular timeframe, the OC brings it back inhouse and the CA gets nothing. I say this because I have another Citi CC account that went to a ruthless CA, who is adamant that I resolve the issue in the next 10 days. I requested a written dunning letter from the CA and as of yet they have not sent one. I suspect that once I get the letter and DV them, the account will return to Citi. At this point I hope that Citi will see the light and come up with a reasonable payment plan offer.


Just some theories!

[Mary Irene]

Good for you Tree Hugger1. Glad to see our side winning for a change.