Being my Own Debt Consultant
By cupcakes84
@cupcakes84 (104)
United States
December 10, 2009 1:43pm CST
Im always recieveing offers on my past debt on how to pay it off with payment plans and i started to notice that these different companies will get rid of my bill for sometimes more than half of what I owed them so instead of calling one of these debt consolidation places and paying them to ruin my credit even more before fixing it I will take it into my own hands. The first plan of action is to get all 3 credit reports from all of the main agencies there are 3: Equifax-Experian-TransUnion After those are in hand I plan to contact every business I owe and personally negociate my debt and talk it down to the least i can get it. This is not going to be over night to pay off all the debts I owe It will probably take me two-three years to get it COMPLETELY clear but its worth it because I would rather it be in my hands than one of these businesses with all the fraud and stealing going on I dont believe any of these companies and would rather I can see everything myself, How do I know if they ACTUALLY paid the merchant or collector? This is the beauty of doing it yourself you can ask for a e-mail or letter to personally state that you have paid off your debt and you can add it to your portfolio to keep track transaction after transaction. It's going too be hard but the pay off will be nice when im able to Buy a house or a car soley on my credit.
1 person likes this
3 responses
@terrile (97)
• United States
11 Dec 09
this is a good idea, but you may find that your debt has been sold to a third party and you will no longer be able to pay the first debtor. I suggest that you also check with your state about the statute of limitations on debt also. You may not be legally required to pay it. If you are already getting offers to take 1/2 payment your credit is already screwed.
1 person likes this
@cupcakes84 (104)
• United States
11 Dec 09
So basically if i dont have direct contact with the company I owed I really shouldnt pay it because you are right I dont know if paying a third party collector will even help my credit? Because the original company has sent me to the credit bureau so from know on im going to have to contact the company if im having any problems. This debt accured when i was younger and just running up bills for no reason with phone companies and schools and if not mistaken one of the schools isnt even open anymore, so yes i need to research more into that. Than You for sharing that did help me.
1 person likes this
@cutepenguin (6431)
• Canada
29 Dec 09
I think that so long as you carefully research, this could work out well for you. I agree with a previous poster that you should ask the company to send you proof that you owe them money - after all, if your debt is getting transferred, how can you keep track of who you owe?
@callarse1 (4783)
• United States
14 Dec 09
How much debt are we talking about?
If you really want to do it, you could always wait until it falls off, or you could pay it to go away. It's really up to you. You seem like you just want to pay it to go away. I would start out definitely 50% off. You could just throw some random figure out: I want to settle for X dollars (see what 30% or 25%). They will tell you what they can do.
If it's already in collections, your accounts are probably in collections. There is no point of calling everyone up if you don't intend to pay (you said it's going to take 2 to 3 years). I would start with the smaller ones that you know that you can pay. You could always work out a payment plan for the full balance.
Record the phone calls if you can, or document each call as to what happened.
Feel free to ask more questions.
