You won't beleive this problem!

[sunfall]

What is the name of your state? CA

We should all have such troubles.

History: I am in "Divorce recovery", from a financial nightmare ex-husbant. Because he was not paying his bills, and at the time, I could not, I filed C7 BK. Turns out, he sold his truck (the biggest debt problem), the very day I was filing the paperwork. As a result, I had my BK dismissed, not knowing it was going to stay on my credit no matter what. Oh, well.

Okay, so, finances have dramatically improved since then, and because I can't count on my ex to do it, I have been paying on the bills in both our names....that is, when I could get the creditors to speak to me. Seems they never got the letter saying I wasn't in BK anymore.

I had laid plans to pay off the bulk of a certain Visa bill this month, about $1200 out of $1600 owing, and continue to pay slowly from there, in order to build a payment history. Now, I have in my hand the first communication they have willingly sent me since the BK: A settlement offer for, you guessed it, about $1200. Question is: will it adversely impact my (thoroughly trashed) credit if I take it, and accept a "Settled/Zero balance" on my credit report?

Appreciate any advice you can give.

 

[bigun]

See if you can negoiate a simple deletion of the trade line.

 

[sunfall]

Sorry, I don't follow. Deletion of the trade line? Does that mean removing the "Settled" part of this?

One thing I was thinking, even though I have very low debt to income ratio, I am as near to maxed out as can be. I had figured I would pay this down quite a ways and continue to pay off monthly, accruing good payment history on one more account. Not to mention, it is one of my oldest accounts, and I know that having long-standing accounts is better than new ones.

Recognizing my credit is already awful for the next coule of years, which way would you play it?

Thanks for the advice.

 

[bigun]

If this account has been chargedoff, you'll not accure anymore payment history. They just want the money. Paid/settled is bad. I think you'd be better off just getting the account deleted. Or, if you feel you want to keep it, ask about an R-5 rating. Some will do that. It would show paid but, 120 days late. Anyway you slice it, the reporting will look bad.

 

[sunfall]

It looks as though I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't then. Oh, well, better take it and save the extra couple o' hundred, I'm thinking. Still, I'll talk to them and see if we can work something out that is least detrimental to my credit.

 

[minerk]

I agree that "Paid/Settled" doesn't look that good, but it looks a whole lot better than a Collections account with a balance owed.

We have been paying off my wife's bad debts for over a year now, most of which indicate a "Paid Collection" status. (Some went away altogether, even though we didn't negotiate that). When we recently applied for a mortgage we didn't know what the bank would say about her credit history. To our surprise they said it really wasn't bad at all. They were more concerned about any items showing a balance than what the status of the paid items was.