Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:19 am what does it mean debt settlement vs paid in full? how does a settlement reflect on the report anyway?

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:22 am what does it mean debt settlement vs paid in full? how does a settlement reflect on the report anyway? A debt settlement appears on the credit report as "settled", "settled for less than the full balance", or "settled in full."You have to negotiate how it appears on your report.

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:29 am It may have something to do with your debt negotiation letter - that is if you are doing a d.i.y. settlement.In that letter are your proposed terms and requests .Make sure to have your creditors sign the agreement--if they agree, remember that they can refuse your proposal too. Part of that request is for the agreed upon amount to be considered as the payment in full - so it would reflect on the report as "paid in full" once they've received the payment.

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:39 am What happens if the creditors refuse?What happens if the creditors have agreed - but then, you obtain a copy of your report and see that it's not the case?

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:42 am debt settlement vs paid in full?I'm  getting confused. To whom do you write this letter? To the original creditor or your collector? If it is the creditor, my question is - do they settle at all? I thought they don't?If it is to the collector - do they actually refuse? I thought once the account has been passed on to them, that they're like hungry wolves and just dive in - better to get something than nothing right?

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:47 am I'm not a debt negotiator but I'd try to answer those:The creditors are the ones reporting to the major reporting bureaus. What it means to settle d.i.y. with the original creditors is to try to prevent them from suing you - you're settling for different reasons of course - but one of them could be that you've learned or felt that they are aggressive when it comes to taking legal actions against consumers with delinquent accounts are are about to default - Anyway, you writing them a negotiation letter does not guarantee that they are not going to sue if you don't pay in full. It just means that you are trying to at least prevent it from happening. If the creditor is not that aggressive - they are not going to sue you but instead pass your account on to a collection agency - you can negotiate with them again - I am just not sure if they are authorized to agree to report your account as paid in full or you have to again go back to your original creditor for that.

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 2:54 am I'll rephrase this question about debt settlement - is paid in full better than settled?

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 3:12 am I got this from an MSN article:It's better to save 50 cents on the dollar and lose a couple points off your credit score by having a settlement as opposed to 'paid in full' because the collection and the charge-off notation is what's hurting the account

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 3:14 am Thanks guys, how about the credit score? Would those negative marks affect it?

Posted on January 13, 2010 at 3:34 am According to that MSN article "the paid-in-full status is going to have little, if any, effect on the person's score."