How much should I offer First Premier?

[sphinx313]

PFD's are a no go with this company. Luckily, they have not yet assigned/sold my debt to a CA. I want to pay them before this happens. Regardless of whether it says I settled for less or not, I'd like it to go down to $0 since this particular debt is affecting my utilization. The amount is $901, and the original credit limit was $800. Should I offer them $500? I am thinking of calling them first before I send a letter to see if I can have them fax me something and then I will pay them off. Otherwise I will send a letter. Is it normal for them to just "reject" an offer and then counter-offer with the amount they are looking for or will I just poke the bear? I am definitely within SOL, and the account was closed in 2010. I think they sent me an offer once for somewhere in the $600's, and not to ass-u-me what they will do, but I don't think they'll sue me for $900. 

I could be wrong, but that's not the point. The point of offering them even 12 cents is this IS my debt, it IS my responsibility and I know THEY are not going away. I will attempt a GW barrage until I have exhausted the acceptable amount of stamps and then I am in for a 7 year ride. Is the phone even a good idea? I spoke to Cap1 on the phone once and the executive office guy was actually pretty nice and offered to remove the last few lates and all of the extra fees from my balance but at the time it still left me in the gutter credit wise. Thanks!

[RobertEG]

Absent getting their agreement to delete, which I assume they wont do, then in my opinion there are two remaining issues.

One is preventing them from collection referral or sale of the debt, thus resulting in a collection being reported, and if sold, immediately taking the OC entirely out of the process.

Two is the possibility that if you settle for less, they will also report the special comment of "paid for less" to the CRA.  That comment alone, apart from any credit scoring issues, is always a negative comment in any future manual review of your credit report, as it informs others that in the past you failed to fully pay all debt incurred.

You could address that issue by requesting, as part of your settlement offer,that they not report that additional special comment to the CRA, thus making your settlement appear to anyone viewing your credit report the same as if the debt had been paid in full.

Other than the obvious downside of more money out of pocket by paying in full, that is, in my opinion, the cleanest approach.  And payment in full may foste a later feeling of more good will on their part should you follow up with a GW after paying.

[scarrollprint]

If you settle, they will NEVER delete out of good will - I can ALMOST guarentee you that.

Look at it this way - your loan your friend money, he doesn't pay you back. It sours the relationship and so you go and shoot your mouth off to somoene about how he owed you money and didn't pay you back.

He then comes back and says "i'm not going to pay it all to you, but I'll pay you half and we can just consider it done since we're not firends anymore" would you then go around and tell people "he's a great guy?"

no, and FP is not only a company that doesn't care what people think about them (they don't need to - their market is people who NEED them not, the other way around) so why would they care if you then praised them even more so if you don't pay in full.

I think RobertEG is right, if your going to settle make sure there is an agreement that they can not make a notation that the debt was settled for less. Otherwise if your going to look for a GW down the line, pay it 100% in full. Send a GW letter WITH the payment saying that even though THEY offered to settle for 300 less you thought it was the right thing to pay your debt off in full and that you would like them to return the favor of deleting the tradeline.

[sphinx313]

I called them today as planned and they refused to talk to me, even after I said "I understand it is with another company but I would like to settle the debt with you" she said "Would you like the number or not sir?"...almost like someone was holding a knife to her throat demanding that she says nothing else. The account is with Accounts Receivable Management and I was given their number. ARM is NOT reporting to the CRA's, so I can only hope they accept an offer instead of decline me and post yet another baddie on my report.

[WhiskeyR]

It's worth sending them a PFD letter. I sent them one and had success (even if it's just dumb luck). I started a thread on it here.

[RobertEG]

When creditors assign collection to a debt collector, even though they still own the debt, many of the assignment agreements include a specific clause that all payments must be made through the debt collector, and not through the OC.  If their agreement with their debt collector included such a provision, they wont negotiate with you.

That is certainly understandable, as one of the reasons they hire a debt collector is to rid themselves of the daily hassles.