Sanity

After reading the goodwill thread on the credit forum, I thought of another question I wanted to ask here. Is there any chance that the hospital could get the debt back from the CA so we can pay them in full if my husband called them and explained our extraordinary circumstances with my MIL being ill. Or should I just let it alone and follow the process outlined on this forum?

Thank you. He completed the following: 1) 5 year electronic opt-out at https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ 2) Ordered credit report via mail. He cannot order his free report via phone because we don't actually have a home telephone number. He filled out the mail-in form and will place it in the mail tomorrow. Now we will wait for the reports to arrive before doing anything else. BUT 1) What should he do about the doctor's office that he settled with yesterday. Should we just go ahead and send them the money. I am talking about the ones that have not been sent to collections. We do owe the bill and one of them did agree to accept half. We are still waiting on a response from the other one. 2) The collection agency sent a letter stating they would pursue a judgment if a payment was received by December. We have never paid them and now we know not to. We want to pay the original hospital in full. But will the collection agency be able to get a judgment while we are doing whychat's HIPPA process?

Thank you. I found whychat's opt out information. http://whychat.5u.com/OPTOUTINST.HTML Do I opt-out at both https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ and http://www.privacyrightsnow.com/optout.htm? Also for the first one, do I do the electronic one for 5 years or the permanent one by mail?

My husband has been working on his medical accounts by himself. He did not have any knowledge of this forum and was just trying to get things handled. Back story - We have been staying with our in-laws for the last 8 months. We were there to take care of MIL who had terminal cancer. She passed away recently. My FIL agreed to help us with our bills since we took care of MIL. His medical bills are all from the summer of 2008. We had insurance which paid most of the bills but we still owe the amounts due and verified this with the insurance company. 1) Doctor bill $290 - They agreed to $145 as a settlement over the phone. 2) Clinic bill $1800 - My husband offered them $800 to settle (over the phone) and is waiting for a call back. He was planning on faxing these letters that he found online to these two medical providers and asking them to fax back the agreements. He does not think that they have been reported to the credit bureau's yet but he hasn't actually ordered his credit report. http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/letters/sample24.html http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/letters/sample22.html Will these letters suffice? He wants to make sure that they don't turn around and sell the remaining debt to a collection agency nor report it to the credit bureau's. 3) Radiology bill $650 - When he called them they stated that they had just sent the bill to collections but would pull it back. They asked for his insurance information. He just received a revised bill for $29 and he paid it. This is the only medical bill out of the four that has been paid. 4) Hospital bill $1300 - This is the only one in collections. It was NCO and now West Asset Mgmt. After negotiating with them he agreed to pay them $775 if they agreed to remove it from his credit report. They stated they can update it but can't remove it. They said after we made the settlement payment they and my husband could work with the hospital to get it removed. They are going to call him back in two days but he basically left it at, I can't get the money from my dad to settle it if it isn't going to be removed from his credit file. I told my husband to stop all contact until I could post here for advice. Where do I start? I'd like to order his credit report but don't know where to get it. Also, I keep reading about opting out and deleting addresses but don't see how to do this. Is this done before or after he gets his credit report? Secondly, I read whychat's Hippa information. "It will only work if the claim is either inaccurate, or you remit the valid correct amount due with the letter." The claim is accurate but we are able to remit the valid correct amount due with the letter. Do I send the PRE HIPAA MEDICAL DISPUTE LETTER TO CRA first? Is this how I document a current relationship between the Health Care Provider and the reporting CA? What if there isn't a relationship or how do I know if there is one? As far as the other two bills that are not in collection, should he pay the agreed settlement? Should we have them sign an agreement or is there a letter we can send with the settlement payment? The first two bills listed here are original creditor's.

Last year, I had really good credit. I was never late, paid most of my balance, etc. We had a large savings account, a CD, and a money market account. Due to extended unemployment and other unfortunate circumstances, we no longer have anything left. In fact, we are behind. That's my boo hoo story. In reality, we made some stupid decisions and while the some of the debt was unavoidable, we should not be in this deep. I have learned a hard lesson from this economy and will be much smarter in the future. The future is starting now and that is why I am here asking people who know about credit to help me. Credit Debt 1) Chase - Balance $4,700.00 (APR 27.24%) - Monthly payment $194.00 Past due 1 month going on 2 2) GE Money Bank Sam's Discover - Balance $8,200.00 (APR 27.97%) - Monthly payment $268.00 Past due 2 months going on 3 3) Credit Union Visa - Balance $1,900.00 (APR 10.90%) Current - Monthly payment $41.00 4) Kohl's - Balance $750.00 (APR 21.90%) Current - Monthly payment $22.00 Total credit card debt: $15,600.00 Student Loan Nelnet - Balance $13,500 (2.480%) - Monthly payment $211.36 Autos Paid for Mortgage BofA (BAC) - Late 3 months - 6.875 % Payment: $1,398.66 (Balance on loan - $149,000.00) Our house is a little underwater. Situation: My FIL asked us to come live with them and take care of MIL who had terminal cancer. He stated that he would pay our bills while we did this. Both my husband and I were unemployed so we agreed and we wanted that time with MIL before she passed. We have been here several months. FIL ran into some financial problems a couple of months ago and was unable to pay many of the bills (credit card payments and mortgage payments). FIL is now in the position to help us get caught up. However, we still have some problems. We won't be able to leave FIL and return home until next month. We are praying that there will be work there when we get back. Once we get back and are gainfully employed I plan to contact BofA and try to get the MHA mod done. If we can get our loan modified we can make the credit card payments. But the house comes first. Questions 1) FIL has agreed to pay off (cash settlement) Chase - Balance $4,700.00 and GE Money Bank Sam's Discover - Balance $8,200.00 if I can get them to settle for about 30%. Would the creditors even entertain this idea? Is there any benefit to me to try and go this route? 2) Would it be better if I tried to get the credit card companies to lower my interest and monthly payments? Will they even do this? I am willing to close the accounts if necessary. 3) Should I catch up with my past due credit cards minimum payments or wait for them to settle/negotiate interests? or will they send them to collections? (Once I catch up, I probably will not be able to make the minimum monthly payments if I make the mortgage payments so I will behind again). 4) I don't even want to consider bankruptcy but am not sure what will happen if we pay the mortgage and not credit cards. 5) If I can't get my loan modified, I may have to consider a short sale. When my husband is working he makes about $3200 gross monthly. I was self-employed but currently there is no work in my field so I will be trying to get a job as a cashier or something similar at night while he is at home. One of the "unfortunate incidents" that I mentioned above was that my husband had back surgery last year. We paid a considerable amount of the medical bills; however, he still owes approx. $5,000. I will post my questions about them on the medical bills forum tomorrow. We were no longer able to pay the $600 monthly Cobra bill so we are without insurance now. I plan to see a HUD counselor for the MHA mod when I return home next month. I am told they will help us with a budget. In the meantime, I don't know what to do with these credit cards bills. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated. I posted part of my story on a loan board so if you read over there it may look familiar to you. However, I really need advice on how to handle the credit card debt.