Anyone cleared a debt...

[Gromit]

By offering to pay a percentage of what is owed? My debt with a collection agency is £1300, the CAB adviser a few months ago said I could offer them £800 to get them off my back, do you think they would accept it? Has anyone had any experience of clearing a debt in this way?

There is a good chance I will be debt free in January

 

[gratts]

Yep, somebody I know did that.
The company that 'owns' the debt prefers it because they get a lump sum immediately rather than have it trickling in over a few years.

 

[Trillian]

yeh, its generally accepted way of doing it.

as gratts said, its a lump sum immediately and also shows that you're commiting yourself to getting it payed off as quickly as your circumstances allow.

within the next year i'm gonna be having this fun,

got student loans for 7 years of uni, gonna be having to sort something in the way of housing, need to get a job, most likely end up needing a car / to replace the car me and millie have / fix car. and possibly, if we have our way, within a couple of years have kids on the way!

oh, oh

 

[cheadle hulme]

Depending on the age of the debt and the completeness of the data held, it will generally have been sold for between 1p and 10p in the pound.
Make them an offer, they can only say no.
Ethically, you should pay in full if the debt is correct.

 

[buggi]

the worse that can happen is they say no. try your luck

 

[swee'pea99]

A mate of mine got two loans settled at, I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was something like 10p in the pound and 6p in the pound. All told, he cleared something like £350,000 worth for £30,000. (Plus they'd frozen the debts for something like 5 years, rather than letting interest continue to accumulate, which would've taken them up over £400,000.)

 

[Mr Pig]

I have a friend who has a car on finance. He couldn't afford to keep up the payments and contacted the company and told them to take the car back.

They phoned him and offered to reduce the payments whilst keeping to his original final date, saving him thousands! They explained that although they would get less money it was more than they'd end up with if they took the car back. He went for it and still has the car!

 

[Gromit]

Thanks everyone I'm going to give paying off the debt in December, fingers crossed that they will accept my offer.

 

[gratts]

All told, he cleared something like £350,000 worth for £30,000.

Who is this maniac of a friend, and how can anyone get into so much debt?

 

[mickle]

I could use a loan with such good terms.

 

[HeartAttack]

....Ethically, you should pay in full if the debt is correct....

I couldn't agree more, maybe I'm old fashioned but if I was to build up a debt I would want to pay it off in full not have the money and then fleece a company for most of it, if I was going to do that I'd look into robbing a bank or something

 

[Globalti]

Why don't people save money, earn interest on it, then use it to buy things?

 

[Mr Pig]

Why don't people save money, earn interest on it, then use it to buy things?

Don't be silly! How on earth could you screw up the whole world's economy if you did that?

 

[Arch]

I couldn't agree more, maybe I'm old fashioned but if I was to build up a debt I would want to pay it off in full not have the money and then fleece a company for most of it, if I was going to do that I'd look into robbing a bank or something

That's all very well, but sometimes people get into circumstances that set them back a bit, and things get out of control. By and large, I'm not one for using credit and the like, but I can certainly appreciate how it can happen. It's not always a case of people going out and buying wanton consumer stuff they can't afford - people who live like that are always going to be heading for a fall, but sometimes it's down to bad luck and needing to eat...

 

[Mr Pig]

but sometimes it's down to bad luck and needing to eat...

Not very often.