If you're not sure the debt collector you're dealing with is legit, here's how to respond:
Dealing With Your Creditors When You Cannot Pay Your Bills
Here are 10 tips for negotiating with creditors and collection agencies.
Aim to Pay 50% or Less of Your Unsecured Debt
If you decide to try to settle your unsecured debts, aim to pay 50% or less. It might take some time to get to this point, but most unsecured creditors will agree to take around 30% to 50% of the debt. So, start with a lower offer—about 15%—and negotiate from there.
Either way, if you or the business can't pay back the debt, a secured creditor can repossess or foreclose on the secured property, or order it to be sold, to satisfy the debt. An unsecured creditor is one to whom no collateral has been pledged and who hasn't filed a lien.
Debt collectors report accounts to the credit bureaus, a move that can impact your credit score for several months, if not years. ... The late payments and subsequent charge-off that typically precede a collection account already will have damaged your credit score by the time the collection happens.
You only need to say a few things:
If the creditor reported you to the credit bureaus, your strategy has to be different. Ignoring the collection will make it hurt your score less over the years, but it will take seven years for it to fully fall off your report. Even paying it will do some damage—especially if the collection is from a year or two ago.
With do-it-yourself debt settlement, you negotiate directly with your creditors in an effort to settle your debt for less than you originally owed. The strategy works best for debts that are already delinquent.
In order to vacate a judgment in California, You must file a motion with the court asking the judge to vacate or “set aside” the judgment. Among other things, you must tell the judge why you did not respond to the lawsuit (this can be done by written declaration).
One of those factors is the ability to prove liability on the part of the defendant who is offering to settle the case. ... Another factor is the ability of that defendant to prove that another party or even the plaintiff himself is partly responsible for the injuries in the case.
It is always better to pay off your debt in full if possible. While settling an account won't damage your credit as much as not paying at all, a status of "settled" on your credit report is still considered negative.
Here's how to negotiate with debt collectors:
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