1 Down 2 to go!

[anewstart]

I just settled with MBNA. Settled for 35% on a $21000 balance. They would not change the wording to anything but settled. But I think I can worry about that latter. Thank you everyone for all your help!

[direred]

Congratulations on working things out with MBNA!

[NitroNate]

Hi there congrats on getting MBNA to settle, I'm trying to go through the same thing right now. I posted yesterday to the Credit Repair forum it looks like I should have posted here.

Question, how did you negotiate with MBNA? The best I could get them to drop was about 1500. Please see this post for reference. http://www.debt-consolidation-credit-repair-service.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20833

Any advice for a newbie dealing with MBNA???

Nitro

[anewstart]

nitro,

Not sure if I'm reading this right. Your balance with MBNA is $6800 and they are offering a $1500 settlement. If so I would think that is a pretty good deal. We have been dealing with they over the last three of four months. I would not disclose that you are trying to get a home equity loan or that you have a certain amount of money to work with. We just explained our situation and said that we are at or end. We explained that we have three major credit cards with high balances and cannot afford to pay on them. We just wrote a letter using the pre-formatted letters that are available at this website. After a week they called us back and made us a counter offer. MBNA has been the pretty good to work with.

[NitroNate]

Sorry, I should have clarified that.....I only got them to drop $1500 from the $6800 to about $5300. The $5300 is the settlement that they are offering. I don't think it's very steller I was hoping for something in the $3400 range. I will try your idea of writing them a letter.

Thanks,

Nitro

[anewstart]

I would send them a counter offer saying $2380. That is 35% of the debt. Simple state in the letter that you are trying to settle with several credit card companies and this is the only offer you can make.

[Vderon]

Can you tell me who you sent your settlement letter to? I have tried to get MBNA to do a hardship payment plan with me, but they refused because I have been paying up to this point, so I guess my next strategy is to not pay them for a couple months and then offer to settle. Anyone disagree with that strategy?

[mmmmaybe]

I was just able to settle a 10k+ balance with MBNA for 30% of the balance. They refused to mark the account as anything but settled, but it's one more account off my back.

I didn't send them an offer, they sent it unsolicited after 6 months of no payments. They were very easy to work with. although they kept pushing back the date that the account would be transferred to a CA. "If you don't respond by the 5th......the 20th...........the 30th we won't be able to help you."

I had mid 700 scores and a very solid credit history before injuries from an accident reduced my earning capacity. I'm not sure if that had something to do with how well they worked with me or not.

[Vderon]

Thank you for your reply. It's painful to trash my credit like this, but I am to the point where the accumulated interest and over the limit charges have put me in an impossible position to ever pay them off, and I am in the same position on three credit cards. I have a 401k that I plan to cash out in January (don't want to take the tax hit this year and add that to my list of problems.) I am hoping to be able to settle all three with the 401k and avoid Chapter 13. If only they would work with me, I could keep paying, but I'm getting nowhere.

I have a similiar situation to yours- excellent credit up until a couple years ago when a huge reduction in salary just put me under.

Did you talk to them when they called? They just called me for the first time, and I haven't responded yet.

For all of you that have settled on credit card accounts rather than declaring bankruptcy, do you think you did the right thing? Just curious.

[anewstart]

Vderon,

I spoke with several attorneys and allmost all of them wanted to point me to bankrupcy. I had excellent credit up until the last year. I too was injuried and my income significantly dropped. My thing is that I wanted bankrupcy to be a very last resort. I felt I was not to that point yet. One thing most attorneys didn't mention, in our state there is a chapter 128 which allows a person to stop interest, late fees and over limit fees and pay back the debt over a period of 3 years. I choose to try to settle right now but may lead in that direction of chapter 128 if my other 2 CC do not settle. So I think to settle is still better than the "B" word.

[mmmmaybe]

I didn't respond until about two weeks before they said it would be transferred to collections. (Even after that they extended it another 30 days.) They sent me a letter offering a lesser amount than what I owed, but when I called they dropped the amount even lower.

I was very shocked that they were so easy to work with. They told me they understood hard times and just wanted to help me out. I kept waiting for the catch. The only thing I didn't like was that I could not get them to mark my account anything other than settled.

I'm doing everything I can to avoid bankruptcy. I consulted an attorney right before I began missing payments and he advised chapter 7.

[Recovering Attorney]

here's what I would do with MBNA

Send your hardship letter to : John Cochran CEO, MBNA America, 100 North King Street, Wilmington DE 19884, send it CMRRR.

Tell them of your problem and why you can't pay and how you would like to handle it. Ask them to take $500 off the account, reage the account, accept the monthly payment you can make, and have them lower the interest to 14.9% .

You will get a letter/phone call from someone in their executive suite. he will offer the lower rate for 6 payments. He may reage teh account for you ( they did for me).

Once you get this person' ear, you can jawbone about a lump sum settlement.

Since someone mentioned taxes, just remember that the amount they forgive is taxable to you as income, so factor thatliability into your future plans.

[Vderon]

Thank you! I will definitely take your advice and send MBNA a letter asap. I do have one question- what is the benefit of asking them to reage the account? Is that good for me, or for them?

I am very grateful to all of you. I'm feeling better about my decision to stay away from Chapter 13 because of all I have learned here. It seems to me , if I am correct, that Chapter 13 and settling accounts have an equally negative effect on your credit. The reason I am choosing to try to settle is to have some control over who and how they get paid. Frankly, I'm more inclined to try and settle for less than I owe with the accounts that unfairly jacked my interest rate up to 28% when I had never been late, with the excuse that I had too much available credit and was too close to the limit on my credit cards. They took a manageable situation and turned it into an "impossible to ever pay off " situation.