There's no such thing as free money.

10/9/2008 12:00:15 PM

I know you can settle for less while with the original creditor. I'm saying that I've never heard of it, simply because most people make these deals with collection agencies.

Quote :

"I also don't know about the paid as agreed line - I do know that it's not the same as "Account is in good standing" though."

Then
- he can ask them to mark it as 'acct in good standing' (if he chooses to leave it open)
- 'acct in good standing' won't apply if it's paid and closed. In which case, 'paid as agreed' is the best, most applicable remark to request.

When I asked for a source, I meant something I could go and read up about online
When someone asks me for help on matters like this, I like to have links to send them, so they can educate themselves while I'm helping them. (Yeah. I know. I wasn't exactly expecting to start fielding personal finance PMs, but I certainly don't mind.)

10/9/2008 12:00:24 PM

Yeah, I haven't seen a credit report in over 2 years and haven't had issues with mine.

I know for a fact that you can ask them to mark the line as paid as agreed, but the lender doesn't have to agree with that... I mean, you're already asking them to take a loss, they don't have to agree on everything. If you tell them "Well I'm not going to settle now", I don't think they'd care much.

10/9/2008 12:06:20 PM

On the other hand...if they're willing to settle, since they don't lose anything by agreeing to that, it probably won't something that makes them unwilling to settle.

He's covering his ass; they lose nothing.

I really don't think he'll be able to settle, as I'd guess qfred hasn't been late or delinquent
But I'm curious to see whether he's able or not.

And if he is, I want him to write an email to tips@consumerist.com, telling them what he did!

10/9/2008 12:09:48 PM

I forgot, the other thing you can ask for when settling is called something like "Paid then Deleted". You pay a settled amount and they agree to delete the record entirely. It can be good or bad, bad if you only have a couple of accounts, good if you have a lot of already established accounts.

You wouldn't want them to delete an account started in 2002 if you didn't start another account until 2006.

10/9/2008 12:14:08 PM