And even the earliest offers I received were frank in ways that apparently had to be legislated to force other outfits to put that card on the table up front. What Ray mentioned regarding the age of the debt lays the SOL right on the table beside it.

Conspicuously absent anywhere in the communications I've received was any tacit or explicit claim that I must accept their offer 'or else.'

"This is an attempt to collect a debt" is just a statement, after all, of what The Credit Store was doing circa 1996 when they made me an offer I didn't want to refuse.

Likewise, with 2 refusals (one active, one the result of carelessness), in real-life activity it went like this:

Attempt to collect:

Here is our offer, which will settle the amount we were told that you owe to ________. Let us know if it is acceptable within xx days. If accepted, upon these conditions, your credit report will reflect the _______ is paid in full.

End of attempt to collect.

Now, I don't know how The Credit Store deals with people who don't manage the card they arrange to issue strictly as agreed. I was never late, never overlimit, so I don't know beans from bananas on that situation.

I do know that anytime I contacted them, the rep reviewing my situation always complimented me on my payment record whether it was the subject of the call I made to them, or not.

But then, they never pretended to be acting on the behalf of the OC, the NEW CONTRACT, if their offer was accepted, was between them and me.

Since they SELL their AA accounts, I have a strong hunch they actively recruit CC Collector types, who firmly educate folks who are prone to careless management or who fail to communicate candidly or accurately and keep nudging them to adopt better habits, learn to budget, etc.

Again, as I stated to Ray: in my experience this organization caters to the "moral" market and goes to considerable pain not to abuse that market. Not even to preach a moral argument to a market that already subscribes to it.

I was never "threatened with collection" if I refused their offer -- and it was almost a year before I got either of the two offers I declined to accept. Both those offers either fell into the hands of collectors who prefer recent defaults, and neither has popped up again.

As near as I can tell from my own experience, this organization has bent over backwards to provide a user-friendly alternative to bad debt perpetuity.

So if there is a "scam" here, I'm not at all certain what it is, unless NO option to actually pay a bad debt EXCEPT for BK can be available for folks who either can not or do not want to declare BK and destroy existing AA credit.

If The Credit Store has changed or been forced to change its business model, and now threatens collection if they are rejected, collects by default judgment with frivolous itigation, all I can say is, what a shame.

But if they are still treating people who accept and reject their offers the way they treated me, all I can say is what a shame there are not more "debt collectors" like The Credit Store.

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