Paying $100k+ Off On Credit Cards in 60 Days

[backonmyfeet]

Last year I had a horrible year and I was unable to pay several credit cards that were business and personal and a SBA loan and I fell several months behind. I owe over $100,000 and will soon have the funds to pay all of my debt off. However, up until last year I had flawless credit, I had never been late on any payments, nor had anything ever sent to collections. In the hard times I fell on as a business owner I had no way to pay on my credit cards and almost 20 years of flawless payment history was lost as I had numerous credit cards I could not make minimum payments on, well over $100,000 in balances and over 10 accounts. I will soon have the funds to pay everything off in full, but I was told that will not delete the collection on my credit report and the damage from them will remain for 7 years unless I obtain a written letter from every bank that guarantees me they will delete the collection from my credit report upon payment in full. I have already had a bank send me a letter that they will settle for 50% of what I owe on the accounts, and I owe over $10,000 on each of the accounts, but I do not want to settle them and have a negative item on my credit report. A negative item on my credit report could cost me a lot in the next 7 years on future business needs as I own my own businesses and need to get my credit fixed. I also read that if I pay the accounts in full and get a delete letter that I can also get the banks to delete the late payments from my credit as a error or glitch. That would be ideal so that I can have my perfect credit again. I will have ample money to pay it all off, but I do not want negative items on my credit report still.

 

I was going to write a letter and mail to each bank and tell them that in return for removing the late payments and collections from my credit report within 15 days of being sent payment for the full balance due, but many of these letters I have found are for settling for less than what is owed. I want to pay what I owe and after I pay them off in full, I want to get the accounts re-opened as many are over 10 years old and I do not want to lose them from my credit profile as strengths.

 

How should I go about doing this? Considering many of the banks already are expecting to get no more than half of what I owe them, and I writing them to offer to pay it in full now, I am guessing that they will agree to my request, but I would like to get the accounts reopened if possible or to report as closed by consumer, not closed by lender, so they report more favorably.

[chugs102]

You need to have hard copies of your credit reports to see who currently owns those debts. If it's the original creditors, then doing the PFD will be easier.

[shifter]

as far as what you're trying to do, you're going to have to tackle each creditor individually. some will be much easier to work with than others.

 

but just offering to PIF isn't going to get what you want in most cases. your best option is to write a GW letter describing what happened last year that made things so tough for you and why you were unable to pay your debts, but now you've gotten back on your feet and are asking for them to help you with a second chance.

 

there are humans at these companies that are going to make the decisions. appeal to the human interest side of things, not just offering to pay them.

[Gallardo]

I could be wrong but creditors never re-open closed accounts. If the account is already closed and is sent to collection, then you can only rely on PFD to remove all the baddies from your report but I don't think it's possible to re-open those accounts to retain their long history. Even if they were to reopen those accounts, they'd have to remove all the lates from the accounts so you're asking for a lot.

 

Bottom line is if it were that easy to pay off all credit cards in full to remove all negatives, almost everyone would have perfect credit. There isn't any quickfix to repairing your credit. It's going to take time. Just like when you betray someone's trust, it's going to take time to build up your trust with that person again.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Gallardo

[chugs102]

I could be wrong but creditors never re-open closed accounts. If the account is already closed and is sent to collection, then you can only rely on PFD to remove all the baddies from your report but I don't think it's possible to re-open those accounts to retain their long history. Even if they were to reopen those accounts, they'd have to remove all the lates from the accounts so you're asking for a lot.

 

Bottom line is if it were that easy to pay off all credit cards in full to remove all negatives, almost everyone would have perfect credit. There isn't any quickfix to repairing your credit. It's going to take time. Just like when you betray someone's trust, it's going to take time to build up your trust with that person again.

 

 

I strongly doubt that the closed accounts can be re-opened. However, the other issue is to avoid the blacklist. Because credit is important to sustaining the OP's business, then by all means, work with each creditor to resolve the debt. Shifter has the right idea.