Negotiating Offers to Pay Balance in Full on Delinquent Credit Card Accounts

I have five credit card accts. that are between 120 and 150 days late. During this time the accts. have accumulated late fees, overlimit fees. Interest rates were that were between 0% and 2.9% were increased to a range between 10.15% and 29.9%. I have received settlement offers on three of the accts. However I now have a resource to enable me to offer to pay the balances in full. I have contacted the credit card companies, and proposed paying the balances that were in place before the late fees , overlimit fees,, and the increase in interest rates. This is where the responses differ completely. Several credit card companies have offered to reverse the majority of the late and overlimit fees, and reverse much of the interest that has been added to the pre late payment balance. Others have told me that they can not and will not reverse late fees, overlimit fees and the post late interest increase accumulations. The fact that some have offered too, tells me that the others are not telling the truth. I don't understand why they would rather accept roughly half the outstanding balance via settlement rather than to work with me so that I will pay the balance in full with some of the concessions I proposed. In fact some of them were down right rude.

This just goes to show that each lender varies and each have their own policies. In these cases, it's entirely up to the individual lender as to what they will and will not accept...

I have a payday loan. The loan was originally for 300. It was taken out in December 2009. My bank account became overdrawn shortly after the new year. I was not able to make the payment. At this point I am being threatened with jail and numerous charges if I do not make at least a 500 dollar payment today. The total loan amount is now up to 751.00. I told the representative that I would pay him what I had in my savings account, (around 400).He stated that it had to be 500 or the police would arrest me. Are they allowed to threaten me like that for nonpayment. I do wish to pay them back, I am on unemployment as I explained and want to make smaller payments to reconcile this. They stated that 500 had to paid or else. I don;t know if they have a right to threaten me with jail. I never received anything in mail of email about the what would happen, just a very ominous phone call stating that I must contact them immediately with my lawyer or else. I think that I should at least pay the initail loan back right away and try to pay the other amount off quickly. What do you think.

Maura,

We don't have debtors prison in America and it is very unusual that you can be jailed for not paying a debt. (There are some situations like unpaid court fines, deliberately bounced checks, etc. But again, they are the exception, not the norm.) I hope you are taking notes every time you talk with this collector.

I would strongly encourage you to talk with an attorney who sues debt collectors to find out if these threats are illegal. If so, you may be entitled to damages and attorney fees. Your first consultation should be free, but be sure to ask. Visit Naca.net to find an attorney in your area with expertise in this area of law.

Then come back and let us know what they say!