I posted here a few weeks ago about dealing with an old charged-off Discover account.
letter:
I am writing to negotiate a settlement to my Discover account. It was charged off in July 2009. The balance at that time was $4472.
At the time, I had a staggering amount of medical debt from a high-risk pregnancy and I was a new mother on unpaid parental leave. When I recovered, I had very high childcare costs to pay in order to keep my job. Now my situation has improved—my childcare costs have decreased and I have a better job and I am willing and able to pay on my debt.
I would like to offer you a settlement of $2400 in lieu of the full amount owed, payable in six installments of $400. In return, I would ask that you report the debt as “PAID AS AGREED” to the credit reporting companies once the full $2400 amount is satisfied.
If this is acceptable to you, please notify me in writing. I will send you the first payment immediately upon receipt of your acceptance.
(etc)
I am not able to fork over $2400 right now in a lump sum, but I could easily do payments. I really want to get this off sooner rather later, which is why I offered payments rather than just setting aside $400/mo for six months and then writing. Is this stupid? Am I making a mistake?
My goals here are to 1) clear up the debt because I feel horrible and guilty about not paying and 2) make sure I don't get sued. I don't think it could hurt my FICO score, because paying something has got to be better than paying nothing, right?
