I defaulted on my Amex in November 2017 for $3900. For years, I ignored the debt, but last year finally was in a place where I wanted to address and take care of this debt. Based on reading other users experiences from this forum, I decided not to agree to a debt settlement and PIF instead. I had an older letter from American Express Global Collections and tried calling that number and had a difficult time reaching some to set repayment. I think I also contacted some random number on Amex website.
On 7/21/21, I reached out and eventually after calling a few more times I was rerouted to a representative at Amex Global Collections. This person was my primary contact whenever I called. I was very direct in that I wanted to PIF and wanted to pay $200 over a 20 month period. The process was fairly straightforward he was willing to work with me on a payment plan based on what I felt I could contribute; however, he did push for a 12 month as opposed to a 20 month repayment period.
I requested email confirmation of the account balance and payment schedule with the number of payments, payment date, and payment amount. I received email confirmation before the 1st payment which was debited from my checking out account on 7/23/21.
Every month one week prior to the payment date I received an email notice of the upcoming withdrawal.
I did have to provide access to my bank routing and checking #. I paid the remaining balance off last Thursday seven months earlier than I expected.
PIF made more sense to me because eventually I know I would like to obtain an Amex and the odds of approval are lower if not.
For reference, my FICO 8 Experian 689, Equifax 708, Transunion 705.
Hope this helps.
