Settlement offer from Chase

[Lyndra]

Hello, I was hoping someone could review this settlement offer I received from Chase to settle my account of $2,547 for $764 and tell me if I'm missing something. Mama taught me if it sounds too good to be true it probably is so I'm just wondering, did I really get this offer to settle for so little out of the blue? This will really go away if I pay the $764? Is there anything I need to do to ensure the matter is actually settled? Just being paranoid, thanks all! 

[shadow99]

I had a really low offer from Chase too.  I accepted it and it was legitimate.  I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was a similar percentage as yours.

Think about it this way.  If they're getting ready to sell your debt to a JDB, they'd probably sell it for $245 or less from what I've read, so settling with you for $754 is better than that.

Make sure you keep that letter and all the evidence that you paid the stated amount on time just in case they forget.

My settlement was at least 2 years ago and I haven't heard a peep out of them since.

[Lyndra]

That's great to hear, thank you!

[Thomas2]

I got one as well a few years back. It was legit & I accepted it as well. Wish a few other OC's had made such an offer for sure. I also haven't hear a peep from them since either. 

[Bulldoger]

My Amazon Chase card went into collections with UCB.  I never talk to anyone went online and picked and option that worked for me. I end up having to Pay $1500 About 40% but over 2 years just $63.00 a month   I wasn't aware of possible low settlements at the time.  

[BackFromTheDebt]

Sometimes OCs will accept a low offer. 
 

I settled with FNBO  for 25% back in the day.  It was a $5000 account.  I called and offered 20% and they countered with 25%. 
 

Sometimes an OC will offer a lowball settlement out of the blue.  Lots of reasons why it could happen.  The hassles of chasing the debt are enough they will take 30% to avoid those hassles or else sell for even less to a JDB.  Everyone wins.  
 

My advice is simple.  If you can afford this offer, pay it.  At this point they are authorized to offer 30% in a lump payment. I don’t know if it is possible to get a better offer.  They probably won’t go any lower.  
 

If you pay this small amount of money your troubles are over.  It will be marked as paid for less on your CR, but that is less bad than not being paid at all.  You will never hear from a collector on this. You will never need to worry about a law suit.  It is total peace of mind for the cost of $764 and change. 

[Lyndra]

Thanks very much everyone. This is great news, I have a consolidation loan that I took out to manage some other debts, wasn't expecting to be able to roll this one into it but now I can if I'm frugal about some other things. One step closer to being out of this mess.

[BackFromTheDebt]

I have some advice as to your consolidation loan.  
 

1.  These loans are a double edged sword.  I did this twice.  The first time I rolled my debts into a mortgage refinance.  That was great for a while, but l had trouble making the payments.  Then, when my credit cards were getting maxed out, I took an unsecured $50k + loan to pay off the credit card debts.  In the end, I wound up with over $50k in credit card debt plus over $50k in consolidation loan debt plus tens of thousands more in my mortgage debt.  Not fun.  
 

2.  Sometimes it is best to settle, rather than pay off, some of your debts.  Triage your credit card debts.  Which cards do you absolutely need?  Which cards are you likely to be able to beat in arbitration? (Such as Synchrony cards).  Which cards are likely to follow you to the ends of the earth to collect their money?  (AmEx, Discover and a few others). 
 

The cards you want to keep, pay off on full and continue using. Make sure you have backups, because some cards will close your account if you default on other cards. 
 

The ones that are aggressive in suing you want to settle if you haven’t paid them off.  Sometimes you have to default on the card before they will settle.  Settle for whatever you can get.  If you settle for 40-50% you have saved 50-60%.  
 

The Synchrony or less aggressive creditors you can hold out for better terms.  Or not.  Depends on what you get. 
 

The point is, by settlement you can save enough to wipe out thousands or even tens of thousands.  This can make the consolidation loan repayments much less difficult and decrease your chances of getting into the same trap I fell into. 

[Lyndra]

Thank you @BackFromTheDebt that is super valuable feedback.  I have accounts at all levels at the moment; some small synchrony and comentity store cards that are paid off, three other cards (another synchrony, comerica and capital one) that I was keeping afloat with minimum payments but making no real progress on, and three debts that defaulted, credit one, chase, and paypal credit. 

A junk debt buyer LVNV funding is currently suing me for the credit one debt; I filed my initial response based on excellent advice elsewhere on this forum but after some research arbitration is just beyond my ability to understand and I wasn't confident pursing that route, and when I received the pretrial conference paperwork I had a bit of a meltdown; I just don't understand a word of it and I knew I was in way over my head trying to defend pro se.  I was surprised to qualify for a consolidation loan but Upstart claims to take employment history and education into account in addition to credit score and I guess that's true because they approved me.  This let me hire a lawyer for the lvnv case who will hopefully negotiate a settlement on my behalf plus knock out this chase settlement and pay off the other cards as well; hopefully all, but it will depend on what kind of settlement is offered in the LVNV case. 

So if all of that works out I will only have the consolidation loan payment and paypal credit to contend with; so far paypal has not come after me at all.  The consolidation loan is a five year term but a pretty low monthly payment; $150, which is less than the combined minimum payments on all the cards so barring disaster (and not running up the cards again- a very real risk that I acknowledge so thank you for that warning!) I will hopefully be ok.  Mostly I am trying to tell myself to hang in there until next summer when my car is scheduled to be paid off, that will be $300 a month I don't have to pay and I can have the tiniest bit of breathing room.

[Bulldoger]

people have used the snowball technique to get out of debt and keep their credit score up. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5jlY8_WmEE

I just decided to let all my cards default and do what I call the squeaky wheel method.  

fight and settle those who sue me 

1st was a PAYPAL credit that was sold to JDB. 

One I am currently fighting is OC Merrick Credit Card.  

(filed arbitration if granted they will have to pay more than my debt to start arbitration so I am sure we will come to a reasonable settlement)

Meanwhile. I try to settle the smallest to largest debt via lump sump payments (snowballing).

Lifted a lot of stress trying to make ends meet and will be out of debt for at most 40% of original debt. No more interest also.  

Plus be debt free within 5yrs verves 20yrs

Cons bad hit to credit score for 7 years

Pros no BK out of debt quickly.

BTW i did two consolidation loans with my work credit union. 

1 for 5,000

1 for 10K

I paid the 5K off

I am 1/2 way through the 10K

 

 

[bigmistake22]

I just did a chase offer - settled for 13% of the debt. The account was charged off but not sold to a collection agency yet. I was worried about getting sued. 

They offered me about 25% of the total debt. I called them and said I would love the accept the offer but the only money I had to pay was from my tax return - I had $1100. They asked if I could do $1500. I said no. I said, at most, $1200. They "spoke to the manager" and agreed.

That was early April, I believe (I posted about it). Waiting to see what this month's CR shows. I think they said it would take 30-60 days to show up. A paid charge off is better than an unpaid one, so I'm happy it's done. it sucks it's on my account for the next few years but at least it's paid. It's going to help my score (I hope!)

By the way, they sent the "your account is paid" letter - it took about 3 weeks b/c they waited for payment to clear, etc. 

Good luck!

 

[Bulldoger]

WOW fantastic settlement.  FYI after I settled with discovery for less then the full amount my tradeline was update to state:

"Account paid in Full was a Charge off" payment history remained. 

I did get 1099-C which included the total balance due - settlement paid. 

IRS only requires Principle to be listed on 1099-C, I called discovery and couldn't get it lowered to just principle they do include fees and interest on 1099-C. 

So hopefully they do you the same 

 

[Lyndra]

Thank you everyone for your input. The payment cleared today and that's one less thing to worry about. Onward to the next bit of mess...