Pennsylvania
My ex had opened a Best Buy account with me as a cosigner. Not even a month later we split and I've never heard from her again. When I closed all the accounts we had jointly this one somehow slipped through the cracks. Three years later I get a call from a collections agency that she had stopped paying her bill four months earlier and that I was now responsible for the debt. I don't want this ruining my credit obviously so I am willing to pay it off if we could come to a reasonable settlement. Unfortunately we have not. The initial time they contacted me they said they would settle for 1398 of the 1740 debt. I told them I'd be willing to settle if we could get that number down some. They called back in a few days and said they had talked with the bank and they would now be willing to settle for 1392. I tried to negotiate in good faith and they come back only willing to drop 6 bucks. Reading online I've seen that I should be able to get something closer to a 60% settlement and they are refusing to drop below 80%. I don't want this to ruin my credit but I don't have the money to pay what they're demanding. What should I do?
My ex had opened a Best Buy account with me as a cosigner. Not even a month later we split and I've never heard from her again. When I closed all the accounts we had jointly this one somehow slipped through the cracks. Three years later I get a call from a collections agency that she had stopped paying her bill four months earlier and that I was now responsible for the debt. I don't want this ruining my credit obviously so I am willing to pay it off if we could come to a reasonable settlement. Unfortunately we have not. The initial time they contacted me they said they would settle for 1398 of the 1740 debt. I told them I'd be willing to settle if we could get that number down some. They called back in a few days and said they had talked with the bank and they would now be willing to settle for 1392. I tried to negotiate in good faith and they come back only willing to drop 6 bucks. Reading online I've seen that I should be able to get something closer to a 60% settlement and they are refusing to drop below 80%. I don't want this to ruin my credit but I don't have the money to pay what they're demanding. What should I do?