Re: Advice on Judgment

Posted by Drew (24.59.27.46) on April 21, 2004 at 15:44:22:

In Reply to: Re: Advice on Judgment posted by ronaldh on April 21, 2004 at 08:11:47:

You are in Michigan. Your chances are depending on whether you are still within statute of limitations or not. If you are still within the statute of limitations and they have the legal standing to sue you, failed negotiation may lead to lawsuit. Michigan is a bad state because the statute of limitations for most things, written and open ended accounts are six years across the board. Even verbal agreements have six years I beleive. So it is a long time to wait out the statute of limitations. However if you call them up first and began negotiating with them, you might stand a chance.

I don't believe that a payment restarts the statute of limitations for credit purposes. The only thing that will do that is if they successfully sue and get a judgement against you and then the judgment can be reported on your credit report extending the credit damage for up to seven years.

Your outcome will depend on the creditor or collection agency whose hand it is in and its policies. Many will settle if you have the cash up front to offer a good settlement and if you make sure you do it in writing and get the terminology of "settled in full". If you don't get teh agreement in writing, you give them the ball and they can pretty much do anything that they want. The most common thing that they will do is sell the account to another collection agency who will add their fees and interest to it and then they will come after you, attempt to report it all over again.

Whatever you do, make sure you have something in writing and get the green mail certifications on every piece of correspondence you send them. Keep a good paper trail. Get copies of your credit report before you even make first contact. This way if they play paddy cakes with your credit report, you will have proof that they do this.

If it is significant debt, you might want to consult a consumer attorney who can handle this matter for you. He might be able to negotiate a better deal and keep things from getting ugly.

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