Advice needed for dealing with collections/past due cc

[kanga1]

Long story short, a couple years before I met my other half he made some poor life choices and got a DWI and spent all his money on attorney fees rather than paying his credit cards. Fast forward to now. Some credit cards have been charged off, some have been turned over to collections. Total debt for all of them is under $5000. He wants to work on fixing this and asked for my help. What is the best place to start? Can we call and negotiate lower balances? If it has been turned over to collections I assume we can no longer call the original credit card, we must now deal with the collections agency? If we negotiate a lower balance and pay it off will it still look bad on his credit report? We pulled his actual credit report, it says they will each go off his credit between the years 2022 and 2024.

[pmwife]

I would check the statue of limitations. If they can't due for the debt, I would work to verify first and then negotiate a lower payment for deleting.

I used to use creditboards to help with debt in the past and cleaning up my report.

[puppylove64]

Yes verify the debt first. If they can’t verify, then they must remove it from the credit report. You contact whoever’s name and number is showing the debt on the credit report. I would try to negotiate a smaller amount because it will save you money. Some people say paying in full might help his credit, but I don’t think it makes much difference. Just pay and make sure they close the account. It will just take time to bring his score back up

[kanga1]

pmwife, puppylove64, Probably a dumb question but if he knows the debt is accurate do we still need to have it verified?

[1yeartogo]

Anything that has been charged off he shouldn’t need to pay. Outstanding balances in collection will already have wrecked his credit. So anything that’s still current or still with a cc company he could try to pay off and get current. Everything else you should just see how long before it doesn’t impact his credit (probably around 5-6 years).

[puppylove64]

Dec 17, 2020 13:30:08 GMT -5 kanga1 said:

pmwife, puppylove64, Probably a dumb question but if he knows the debt is accurate do we still need to have it verified?

Yes. Although, maybe some may argue this unethical, creditors don’t always do everything like they are supposed to. If they can’t verify it and show they have the proper documentation, you don’t have to pay it.

We had a landlord turn Dh over to a creditor for damages. We knew we owed something, but argued over the amount. The creditor didn’t collect the proper information from the landlord. They couldn’t verify it and had to drop the entire amount. We got the entire thing removed from dh’s credit and didn’t pay anything. The burden of proof is on them, and I would alway make them prove it first

[Cappy]

Dec 17, 2020 13:24:08 GMT -5 puppylove64 said:

Yes verify the debt first. If they can’t verify, then they must remove it from the credit report. You contact whoever’s name and number is showing the debt on the credit report. I would try to negotiate a smaller amount because it will save you money. Some people say paying in full might help his credit, but I don’t think it makes much difference. Just pay and make sure they close the account. It will just take time to bring his score back up

This! In 2006 I was able to erase several thousand of my DH's prior debt by sending letters to request debt verification. I used a template I found in a book by Suze Orman. They never were able to produce verification since it had been sold off several times. They wound up removing it from the credit reports. Another important point is the statute of limitations. If you make a payment that re-ups the timeframe. 

apps.suzeorman.com/igsbase/igstemplate.cfm?SRC=MD012&SRCN=aoedetails&GnavID=84&SnavID=20&TnavID=&AreasofExpertiseID=24

[wildrice]

I think another reason to verify is that debt gets sold so many times, you might be being contacted by a company that doesn't even own the debt anymore but just wants to make money. So if you pay them, it may not even actually satisfy the debt. IDK how common that is, but those debt collection companies are definitely sketchy.

It's been more than a decade since I did this for my XH's debts, but IIRC I paid off anything that wasn't charged off, but did not pay the charged off balances. I believe they stop affecting your credit score after 7 years, so if they are older than that there is no real benefit to you to pay them off at this point. In fact, I heard (and this could be incorrect) that paying them at this point would actually reactivate them on his credit report and might be more of a problem than if you let them quietly go away. You may want to verify that.

I've been divorced from my XH for almost 8 years now and I still sometimes get calls about collections. I honestly have no idea if they are new since our divorce (very possible) or if they are still those really old, charged off debts that he accrued 15-20 years ago.

[pmwife]

Dec 17, 2020 13:58:56 GMT -5 puppylove64 said:

Dec 17, 2020 13:30:08 GMT -5 kanga1 said:

pmwife, puppylove64, Probably a dumb question but if he knows the debt is accurate do we still need to have it verified?

Yes. Although, maybe some may argue this unethical, creditors don’t always do everything like they are supposed to. If they can’t verify it and show they have the proper documentation, you don’t have to pay it.

We had a landlord turn Dh over to a creditor for damages. We knew we owed something, but argued over the amount. The creditor didn’t collect the proper information from the landlord. They couldn’t verify it and had to drop the entire amount. We got the entire thing removed from dh’s credit and didn’t pay anything. The burden of proof is on them, and I would alway make them prove it first

Also, in some states the debt collector had to be registered. If they verify but aren't registered properly, you can negotiate for them to delete it. There are also time frames they have to follow.

I was able to use the lack of response and not being registered to get rid of some zombi debt.