Hey all, just want to leave this here for anyone who may look for info in the future. I didn't find a lot of threads about Capital Management Services (CMS).
So, they were collecting on *behalf* of Discover. They didn't own the debt so they didn't show on my credit reports. But Discover has been reporting me as late/in collections every month still and I'm pretty sure they're dragging my score down a lot. The total was $2079.00 for a $1600 limit ugh.
Anyways, I called and they offered to settle for like $1200. I said that was out of my range and I'd have to call them back. He then said, let me see if I can get any lower. He came back in like a minute with a little over $1000. I said I appreciate you checking and doing that for me but I just don't have that kind of extra money. He asked what I could do. So I sighed and said, "Well, I don't even know. It's a pretty big difference from what you're asking. I can only do like $500 I guess." He said let me check and comes back with "My supervisor said we can do $623, that's the absolute lowest." I hemmed and hawed and sighed and said ok, I can probably swing that lol.
So I settled for $623 which was 30%. This was my first time negotiating. I might have been able to get the same deal by being very direct and demanding. But instead I just played dumb and unsure lol. So that's what I recommend.
Update***
It reported to the Credit Agencies (Experian at least) and bumped my FICo score up 21 points. I'm now at 662. I was really hoping to hit that 670 mark but I'll get there. Next is either a collection I still have, which will be removed by Portfolio Recovery, or a student loan that's a charge off but not yet sold. I need to decide soon which one to tackle first.
Starting Score: 494 503 521
