Credit report says unpaid balance charged off

[Anonymous]

I had a car that got repoed early last year, an attorney office from NY contacted me several times asking for a lump sum settlement which i couldn't afford  and I haven't heard from them in quite a while. Tonight I decided to check my credit report to see that it says unpaid balance charged off. I'm really not sure what that means. Can they still sue me for the remaining balance?

[drkaje]

It means they declared the funds unconvertible and charged it off as bad debt.

Yes, they can sue you.

[llecs]

Having gone through it myself in my dark credit days, I'll second that they can still sue. When the car is taken they will sell the car at auction for a very cheap price. The balance paid for that vehicle is then used to pay down the loan balance, and it is very easy to owe thousands after the auction especially with added interest each month.

I'd save up 100% of the balance owed as fast as possible. Once you have that, then you have some negotiating room to negotiate a PFD to get the charge-off deleted, and/or you can settle for a lot less. But I wouldn't do anything unless you had it all saved up. If you do anything like dispute, write letters, etc., it will wake them up and put a target on you to be sued.

[Anonymous]

Yea not really an option. No way i can  save up 12k. Asked them before f i could make payments n they said they would only take the lump sum. Not really sure what i can do now other than have them sue me.

[Anonymous]

so they can sue even though the balance says 0 on my credit report?

[FrugalRican]

It saying 0 doesn't mean you are off the hook.

It means they wrote it off of their books. It's been charged-off for them. Considered a loss, but trust me, they have the exact dollar amount of the lump sum that you owe.