Re: Pay? Providian Charge Off to CA Collection

Posted by Edward Riel (64.164.10.229) on July 12, 2003 at 04:45:01:

In Reply to: Pay? Providian Charge Off to CA Collection posted by Please Advise on July 10, 2003 at 12:58:41:

Hi,

The Statute of Limitations for credit card debt in CA is 4 years. You have one more year to go before you cannot be sued on this debt.

Most likely, if the collection agency has not sued you yet, they shall not. They usually don't for amounts under 2k.

If you do desire to settle, make sure you get it in writing that the settlement is in 'full,' and that the remainder shall not be resold.

No matter what occurs, both the original credit card charge off, and the collection agencies listing should drop off of your credit report in the year 2007 - they should both have the same start dates - which is roughly 90 days from the date of original default, if memory serves correct.

I realize that most posts on this board are slanted towards how avoiding having to pay debts, and that is fine (it's human instinct to desire to maximize one's wealth), but I'll share my story with you, which might shed some light on the issue, and provide you with some hope of rebuilding your credit:

In 1998, I was in lawschool, had personal problems, ran into debt; in short, I defaulted on 2 visa cards accounts, one discover, and bounced numerous checks. Not a very smart thing to do.

I let the issue go for a couple of years, but knew that eventually, I would have to pay off/settle all of my debts, insofar as a precondition of becoming an attorney is passing a 'moral background check,' in which they explicitly ask you if you have any debts which are 'past due' and, if so, how come, and how can the state bar authorities contact your creditors?

I didn't want to deal with that. Hence I worked at
settling all of my past due debts and charge offs beginning in the year 2000. It was a bitch - and I really don't want to go into the hassles I had to deal with re: lying personnell at collection agencies, etc.

Here's the ray of light in the whole affair, though - I found out that two of my charged off credit card accounts were purchased by westmoreland collection agency, in cooperation with Capital One.

When I contacted them about settling my accounts, they offered to transfer my outstanding balances, less a few hundred dollars, to credit cards, which I could pay off as I would a regular credit card.

The downside to this offer was, at the time that they offered it, I was beyond the reach of the statute of limitations; they were probably gambling that I didn't know that; they also didn't know that I *had* to settle all of my outstanding debts, in any case, or else I'd never become an attorney - hence, they had me at an advantage.

Of course, I didn't let them know it. I agreed to the credit card offer. This was in 2002, and I, frankly, didn't think I'd ever have a credit card again - at least until after 2005, when all of the negative remarks were to fall off of my credit report.

Flash to July 2003 - After a year and a half of paying off, in timely manner, my old charge offs on the Capital One cards, my credit has risen enough, apparently, to the point where bank of america and chase manhattan has approved me for their gold and platinum cards, respectively. At lower rates, and with much higher lines of credit.

Hence I've transferred my old charge off debt from the capital one cards to those cards, and have closed the capital one accounts.

Thus, by settling and transferring my old charge offs to new cards, I've managed to rehabilitate my credit 2 years before schedule - I didn't think that I would be able to get any credit before the charge offs and bounced checks dropped off my credit report in 2005. But, apparently, even those with charge offs and bounced checks can still get unsecured credit cards in todays economy.

So I'm happy.

Just thought I'd drop a line letting you folks know that even those of us with dinged credit can still get by in today's economy.

Best of luck to you!

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