That's great!
To shed a little more light on my tactics with my GW letters, this is how I went about it:
With one CA, AFNI, I sent an email to a middle manager that I had found on the BBB website. They responded within a couple of hours and said they'd delete. The next day, EQ reported it gone and EX/TU reported about 2 days later. They also included a deletion letter in their email response.
With Discover Card, I found am email address belonging to their VP of card services and the next day I got a call from a lady at their executive offices informing me that they would delete the TL. It took about a week for them to do so (in fact, it cleared off TU just today). They did not send me any documentation.
Another CA (a VP again found on the BBB website) replied back to my email saying they'd close out the account as settled in full (it was showing a balance and still open), but ignored me when I said I'd like them to delete. I intend on waiting a while on this one and then trying again, perhaps targetting a different VP.
The last one that I've been working on seems like a pretty small collection agency and I sent an email to their general email address, then followed up with a phone call after I didn't get a response in about a week. They said they'd delete but it wouldn't happen til September because they only report once a month. I'm skeptical, so I'll be calling back on that one as well.
Lastly, as far as tactics are concerned, all of my attempts have been under the category of "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar". On that note, my emails follow these rules:
1) I address it personally to the VP if possible (Dear Mr. Smith) and thank them for taking the time to read my email and hear me out. I also include the account number, date, and original creditor (if applicable).
2) I give some background as to what happened and what steps I've taken to correct my error. In conjunction, I admit that it was my mistake and take responsibility for it.
3) I express appreciation for the people I dealt with when settling the debt (without brown-nosing), even if they were anything but professional or pleasant. In essence, I praise them for working with me to get the matter settled.
4) I explain what I want and why - in most cases, deletion so that I can clear up my credit and put my past mistakes behind me, deletion to get a home loan, whatever.
5) I acknowledge that they have no obligation to assist me and appreciate them considering my request. In cases where I didn't pay in full, I add that if there's anything I can do to help them arrive at the decision to help, let me know.
To me, the trick is to get them to think of me as a person instead of a number, be polite, and keep on track. I don't want it to sound like a sob story or like I'm trying to grovel for table scraps, but I am asking them for a favor and want to express that I appreciate any help they can provide. I also be very careful not to ever lie or embellish the truth because if they ever want documentation to back up what I say, I would want to be able to provide it (well, and keep my karma clear). In my case, I was in the military and deployed and it hurt me pretty badly financially, so I might have to be able to show them that.
Anyway, that's how I went about it. Let me know if this helps!
