Is my situation unique?

[badprncess]

What is the name of your state? CA

I have searched through this board and others trying to find a situation similar to mine but I can't find any exactly like mine so I thought I would post and see if anyone can help me. I am receiving notices from Asset Acceptance offering 50% settlements on 2 credit cards I had when I was in college and very irresponsible with my credit and money. The last payments on these cards would have been July 1998 at the absolute latest. I know these debts were charged off by the original creditors (BofA and Universal) and they are past the SOL for my state, I believe. I have lived in California my whole life, I have never moved out of the state. These accounts no longer appear on my credit report but Asset Acceptance is still trying to collect on them. As I see it I have 3 options but I am not sure which to take:

1) I can send them a cease-and-desist letter. This seems to be the best option because I was pretty sure they couldn't sue me for a debt that was beyond the SOL but in my internet research I seem to have found a lot of people who are being sued for debts like mine and I am afraid that by responding with a c-a-d letter they will start suing me and make me go to court....

2) I can contact them and make them validate the debt, then make a settlement. This option does NOT appeal to me because I don't want these popping back on my credit report for 7 years. it is so frustrating that the system is such that if you do the right thing and pay your old debts you actually get dinged worse than if you just ignored it..... can you make a stipluation in your settlement that they will not report it?

3) Continue to ignore them as I have done for over 7 years.

If anyone can offer some insight on what the best course of action would be for me I woud really appreciate it. This board has been of great help to me already but if someone could reply (ladyinred?? please??) I would really appreciate it. Thanks so much!!

[seniorjudge]

Standard answer on expired SOL (statute of limitation) and/or validation and/or dispute letters. There are thousands of posts similar to yours on this forum so I have prepared a standard answer.

SOL (Statutes of limitation are DEFENSES to lawsuits; they do NOT provide a method to stop someone from suing you. This defense means when they sue you, you answer with the defense that it is barred by the SOL.)

[url]http://www.bcsalliance.com/y_debt_sol.html[/url]

[url]http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/Disputing_Collections/SoL-dispute-letter.html[/url]


Validation letter samples you can get at :
[url]www.creditinfocenter.com[/url]
and [url]www.creditboards.com[/url]

Make sure you ask for VALIDATION (and do not accept verification).


Disputes: You can write a letter of dispute to the three credit reporting agencies.

Go this website to find instructions and samples for how to dispute: [url]http://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/[/url]

Sometimes errors are easy to remove and sometimes they stick like glue. It is inexpensive to try and not difficult.

I am NOT a creditor-debtor lawyer; stand by for further help.

I am NOT vouching for the accuracy of these websites!

Debt settlement:

[url]http://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=293829[/url]