elyse449 Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 Hi all,We're trying to refi and to complete wthat we need to in order to improve my dh's credit scores.Part of that is offering a settlement for an Applied Card Bank account that went south last year. So far, only Applied Card is reporting the negative TL however...the acct is with "Weltman, Weinburg & Reis." Now--here's my concern...WHO do I attempt to offer funds to?Secondly, if I settle w/ the CA than how do I negotiate the TL on dh's CR's??? Should I try contacting the OC and settling with them directly???The amount is up to 1541.00 by the way. DOLA was just last year. I'd bend over backwards to pay it all if they'd just remove the negative listing, otherwise I was told to offer 60%. Thoughts? If we can't improve Dh's credit scores, we'll have to sell our home.This isn't our only debt we'll need to pay to improve dh's credit score. But again-I'd bend over backwards to get it paid if they'd just remove it. Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willingtocope Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 IMHO, never settle with a CA. If the OC still owns it, call them. If they won't talk to you, send them a CMRRR offer letter. If they won't accept the offer in writing, sue for poisioning your credit file.The CA cannot do anything good for you, other than remove their own TL...which, of course, if it isn't there in the first place, they can't do anything for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brattylatina Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 Are all your credit cards paid off? When I was trying to qualify and needed my scores up immediately, I paid them off, waited for them to report and they each jumped like 50 or so points. Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluechipcreditcoach Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 Hi elyse449, Have you sent a DV letter to the CA? If you have not, this is very important. If applied card is still the original creditor and has not charged-off or sold the account, then I would advise you to negotiate with Applied Card for payment and removal. If Applied card has sold the account and the CA owns the account, you need to demand strict proof of your debt. The FDCPA does not give a CA authority to purchase evidence of a debt and act on the behalf of a creditor without the debtors consent. Layman’s terms: If you never came into contractual obligation ( i.e. making payments or signed an agreement with the CA) then you do not owe them. If the CA cannot validate the debt, then they must remove it and furthermore while you are disputing the debt in question, you can make them stop communicating/reporting the debt. (You will also want to send a dispute letter to the Credit Bureaus disputing the CA account.) In the letter to the CA, you will want to put the same restrictive reporting requirement on the CB’s. This way they will not be able to annotate the item on the report as disputed, they will have to temporarily delete it until the investigation is resolved. Normally, when you dispute a TL, the CB will only annotate it as disputed and it will remain on your credit report. If you have several accounts that need to be paid, then you may need to pay some and negotiate deletion terms on them. ( when making the decision to pay, you need to evaluate it the payment of the debt is going to actually help improve the score. If the debt is over two years, it will actually hurt the score more if you pay it now. On these accounts that are older that two years old, I would dispute the accuracy of the TLs with the credit bureaus. You would be surprised how many creditors can not verify the accuracy of the information that they provide. Another technique that works for people that are trying to refinance or purchase a home is if you have had your credit report pulled by a mortgage company, you need to get the credit report # (whenever a credit report is pulled it is assigned a tracking #) and the name of the mortgage company; Contact the mortgage department; tell them that you are in the process of closing on a home and you have this information that is in question. With the many cases that I have seen, items have been deleted right there while we were in the phone. I have had much success with this process. Many people do not even know that a mortgage dept exists at the bureaus, but it does. The people that work in the mortgage department at the bureaus are much nicer and user friendly that the other customer service representatives and have deleted items while I was on the phone with them. You need to make sure that you have some items that you have paid w/proof and some that you are have that are in question. The results/deletion of these “investigations” takes less than 1 week in worse case scenarios. Good Luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elyse449 Posted February 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 IMHO, never settle with a CA. If the OC still owns it, call them. If they won't talk to you, send them a CMRRR offer letter. If they won't accept the offer in writing, sue for poisioning your credit file.The CA cannot do anything good for you, other than remove their own TL...which, of course, if it isn't there in the first place, they can't do anything for you.Answer: The account is listed on dh's CR's as; "Profit and loss write-off, Credit card, Account closed because of repossession or charge-off, Unpaid balance reported as loss by credit grantor. Charge off: 1541.00 02/06Charge off: 1541.00 03/06" (not sure why there's two)LOL...why don't they just write that we showed up at each of their homes and killed their puppies? Laying the language on a bit thick..at any rate...Thoughts??? Since the CA is not reporting, does Applied Card still own the debt?Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elyse449 Posted February 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 Are all your credit cards paid off? When I was trying to qualify and needed my scores up immediately, I paid them off, waited for them to report and they each jumped like 50 or so points. Just a thought.No, they aren't paid off but I'm paying them up to a good utilization level. In other words, we don't owe much and it probably wouldn't be hard at all to just pay them in full to see if it'll boost his score...thanks for the idea, I hope it works.Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elyse449 Posted February 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 Hi bluechip,You said---"Have you sent a DV letter to the CA?" Answer: No. This debt is ours and we know it's ours. It is a recent debt that is just about 1 yr of age. We've no wish to go the DV route with this one when it's imperative that we qualify for a refi in 6 months time."If applied card is still the original creditor and has not charged-off or sold the account..."Answer: It is charged off. I think I must now work with Weltman, Weinburg & Reis, the CA holding the acct that is calling DAILY."The FDCPA does not give a CA authority to purchase evidence of a debt and act on the behalf of a creditor without the debtors consent."Answer: Excuse me? They can sell or assign to whomever they wish without our consent, and typically ANY contract you sign agreeing to the terms when you initially opened your account contains the necessary verbiage to secure that."Layman’s terms: If you never came into contractual obligation ( i.e. making payments or signed an agreement with the CA) then you do not owe them."Yes, this is a common urban legend I've heard time and again and have read that this is false. Again-if the contract we entered into stated I agree to make my payments to Cross Country Bank "or it's assignee's/purchasers" than I definitely DO owe the CA if they've been assigned the debt. "If the CA cannot validate the debt, then they must remove it and furthermore while you are disputing the debt in question, you can make them stop communicating/reporting the debt."I am aware of this. However, this doesn't help me when I know I must pay it to be approved for a refinance. I am told even carrying a -0- bal will improve my chances with a mortgage company. Also, I don't have time to mess around with all this stuff at this point. "If the debt is over two years, it will actually hurt the score more if you pay it now." Only due to re-aging and this debt is one year old. Also, with time it's my belief the score will rise again. We don't mind paying bills that are ours, but we'd like to negotiate the reporting a bit--my concern here is, if only Applied Card is reporting (yet they charged it off) than how do we do that when Weltman, Weinburg & Reis claims they've been assigned this debt? "On these accounts that are older that two years old, I would dispute the accuracy of the TLs with the credit bureaus..."Yes-I do know about that avenue to doing things, but in the situation I'm in I just can't bother with it right now. Besides, if I were to inquire about ANY of those other debts, it'd sink my score so I can't even look at those right now. Thank you for your input and I was continuing to work old debts, but at this point it's my understanding that at 5+ yrs of age they just aren't having that negative of an inpact on my overall score and again, I don't want to muck with them and re-age them...some of them are already doing that and I'm in a pinch and can't afford it.Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willingtocope Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 Answer: The account is listed on dh's CR's as; "Profit and loss write-off, Credit card, Account closed because of repossession or charge-off, Unpaid balance reported as loss by credit grantor. Charge off: 1541.00 02/06Charge off: 1541.00 03/06" (not sure why there's two)Okay, then this says that the OC has sold the debt. There really isn't anything you can do that will improve their TL. As far as they're concerned the matter is closed.If the JDB who now owns the debt isn't reporting, then I wouldn't do anything. You really don't owe the JDB anything (doesn't mean they won't try to collect it). If its not on your credit reports, it won't affect your new mortgage any more than the "Write off" does already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willingtocope Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 Actually, re-reading your last post, I don't see the magic words "sold to another lender". Without that, it is possible that the OC still owns the debt. Call them and find out.(Charge off is just an accounting term that means charge against income for tax purposes...it doesn't mean they've washed their hands of the debt.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilton1 Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 I don't know if this will help but I sent a goodwill letter to the CEO of applied card bank. I had the account for only a few months never made a payment. They cancelled the account and demanded payment in full bc i did not have a home phone. I did not have all the money to pay so i did not pay it was written off may or june last year and I emailed the CEO october; he returned email the next day and TL was removed from report. FYI, I did not pay the balance in full I settled with a CA this was before I found this board so I had a settled for less than full amt on credit report. I have the contact email and phone numbers for the CE0, VP and a copy of the letter i sent if they can help you let me know. But just so you know he was really nice and said to contact him if he could help with anything else.Again if you need that info i will send in private message. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elyse449 Posted February 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 I don't know if this will help but I sent a goodwill letter to the CEO of applied card bank. I had the account for only a few months never made a payment. They cancelled the account and demanded payment in full bc i did not have a home phone. I did not have all the money to pay so i did not pay it was written off may or june last year and I emailed the CEO october; he returned email the next day and TL was removed from report. FYI, I did not pay the balance in full I settled with a CA this was before I found this board so I had a settled for less than full amt on credit report. I have the contact email and phone numbers for the CE0, VP and a copy of the letter i sent if they can help you let me know. But just so you know he was really nice and said to contact him if he could help with anything else.Again if you need that info i will send in private message.I would love that info if you wouldn't mind? I'm thinking I'll try contacting Applied Card Bank first and laying on the maple syrup REALLY thick! LOL. I've been a bit hesitant because last year (before it charged off) I tried to settle it out and pay it, but they said they'd list it as a "paid charge off" anyway...and by than they didn't want my 700.00 payment, they wanted the full 1000.00...eek, we'll see.Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilton1 Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 I am going to send you the info PM. I tried to settle with them and the little people i spoke with said i had to deal with CA. Well any way check you PM in a few minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elyse449 Posted February 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 I am going to send you the info PM. I tried to settle with them and the little people i spoke with said i had to deal with CA. Well any way check you PM in a few minutes.Thank you so much! It's just that last year I attempted to work with the regular reps and just didn't get anywhere...actually, I almost did until the rep's boss came over and jumped in to the conversation, it was awful. And I know they can smell fear!Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilton1 Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 Email the CEO and tug on his heart strings; he actually has one. I think he will have the other executives help you. I have learned my lession I work down the ladder, not up. Once the CEO puts them on a task is gets resolved in record time. I have had zero luck with reps.Good luck I am sending you an to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elyse449 Posted February 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 How long did all this take you? I mean, from the time you first contacted Mr. Abbessino or whoever...to when the matter was resolved? Also, you'd already paid it when you went to him?Elyse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilton1 Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 It was removed removed before october 31. I sent him the email October 19. The other guy started working on it the 20 and on the 23 he sent me an email saying that they notified the bureau and it would be removed in 60 days. I was not reporting on the October 31 report. So a total of maximum 10 days.I had already settled with a jackass CA Powell Rogers and Speakes. Anyway I paid more than I used, about 50% of the balance that they were reporting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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