$600 per account / $300 for Credit Activists
All personal service now include a one year subscription to the CreditFactors Knowledgebase and Member Forum.
If you’re not facing a deadline and you have time to read and learn, I recommend ordering the subscription prior to ordering personal services. CreditFactors subscribers can also get help at the CreditFactors member forum at no additional charge. If you decide to order personal services within 60 days, you will receive a refund and if you ordered the 6-months subscription, it will be extended.
Maybe you can settle your debts yourself.
Subscribe to CreditFactors — You can post questions at the CreditFactors forum at no charge.
Personal Recommendations
I can’t settle any accounts without first reviewing your credit reports and determining whether you SHOULD settle and WHAT ELSE you should be doing.
Please order the Credit Review and I’ll review your credit reports. Once you answered my questions, we decide whether any accounts should be settled.
Sometimes it’s not necessary or beneficial to settle debts, sometimes debts have to be settled to improve the FICO scores or to get a mortgage at the best rates. If so, we’ll decide whether to start with one account or how to proceed. If I work on several accounts, I can give you a discount.
Unlike most other debt negotiators, I do not charge a percentage of the $$$ saved.
It doesn’t matter if the savings (discount) is $100 or $20,000, it’s the same amount of work for me and I may even recommend that you do NOT settle an account for a number of reasons:
- The statute of limitations might have expired
- A collector might not be able to document the debt.
- Paying a judgment will not improve your FICO scores and many creditors will not vacate judgments.
- Why pay one or even several creditors if you can’t settle all accounts and your credit won’t improve?
The bottom line is that whether to settle depends on YOUR individual situation.
If your credit is fairly good and/or the creditor could garnish your wages, you might want to settle. If you are sued or served with an arbitration claim, you may want to settle IF you have the funds, your credit isn’t shot already, you have assets or they could garnish your wages and bankruptcy is not a viable option.
Always settle judgments BEFORE you try to get a mortgage.
If you want to buy a house or refinance, judgments and most collections should be settled and/or removed from your credit. Judgments will most likely be found by the title company even if they are not on your credit. Collection law firms sometimes have an option on their telephone system for “escrow payoffs.” They love escrow payoffs — they get paid in full including the accrued interest.
What to expect when you settle
Every creditor has different policies and with the current credit crisis, many banks are desperate for dollars.
In 2008, some banks settled even BEFORE the accounts were charged off for about 25%. In 2009, a client received an offer from Chase to settle for about 10% of the charged off balance.
I called to settle a $12K judgment obtained only a few months earlier, they offered to settle for $8K and finally accepted $7K. Not a bad settlement for this very new judgment.
I negotiated a settlement with Wolpoff & Abramson after they filed an MBNA arbitration claim against my client. The attorney promised that the account would be deleted from the credit reports after settlement. After we reached an agreement and my client sent the payment, I asked for written confirmation that they’ll delete and he claimed that he never promised deletion.
As I usually record all business calls, I left the excerpt of the recording with his promise to delete on the attorney’s VM. They promptly sent a letter stating that MBNA had deleted the account.
My credit, real estate and mortgage expertise.
Aside from my credit reporting and FICO scoring expertise, I have an extensive real estate and mortgage background (Cal. real estate and mortgage broker in the 90s) and after 12 years of running credit forums and providing personal consultations, I am one of the most knowledgeable experts in the country.
After the Credit Review I’ll know whether deletion of an account or vacating a judgment is worth a few extra bucks when settling. It depends not only on the reporting of the accounts to be settled, but also on what other accounts are reported. There is no point to fighting to vacate a 4-year old judgment when you have a 1-year old paid judgment that’s already been verified. Determining what’s relevant and important to achieve your goals is my expertise.
When debts are reported by collectors, they should often be disputed prior to any settlement attempts. Those recommendations along with the specific dispute according to your situation are part of the Credit Review. Once you have FCRA and FDCPA violation against a collector, you’re in a much better position to negotiate and maybe they’ll even send a check to you.
I am offering Debt Settlement with the following terms:
- If you have more than one account to settle, you should first order a Credit Review or the full Analysis.
- You must provide me with online access for your credit reports.
- I expect to spend about 6 hours per account to be settled.
The Process
During the initial Credit Analysis or Review we discuss the problem accounts. Sometimes it’s an “all or nothing” type situation for clients with limited funds or to decide whether to file for bankruptcy and I have to contact all creditors for offers. For several accounts I can usually give a discount, it really all depends on who the creditor is, how difficult they are — sometimes I spend literally hours on hold and being transferred around just to get the number to fax the power of attorney to.
Sometimes creditors and especially law firms decide to send numerous mailings after the settlement to me, and I have to forward everything to you. I keep a call log, post summaries of all calls at your private forum and I save the recordings. We discuss the offers and your options.
I ensure that your settlement is properly documented and that you have proof of settlement. One of my clients had settled an account with debt buyer Asset Acceptance a few years ago and then another collector demanded payment. While she was able to get the cancelled check from her bank, she had nothing to document which debt was settled with the check.
If you have several accounts to settle, you can have me negotiate the first settlement and then settle the others yourself if you feel confident negotiating on your own behalf. Sometimes it’s best to quickly settle, as when an account is assigned to a new collector and not yet reported. If the total is only a few hundred dollars and it’s not reported on the credit, there’s really not much to negotiate. I can give you some tips on how to proceed and that’s part of the Credit Review or Analysis.
Debt settlement is generally only for EXISTING clients. Please email if you believe that settlement is the ONLY service you need.
