Sometimes people get stuck financially, and they can do nothing about it.
Let’s talk about “Jill”. Jill has been divorced for years. Jill had adjusted her lifestyle to accommodate her perpetually low credit scores. Not all the bad credit on Jill’s credit report was hers. Her ex-husband’s shared some of the responsibility. Jills portion mostly consisted of medical debt, his part was credit card debt. Whether the court ordered for him to pay or not it tanked her credit scores because it is on her credit report. All of it needs to handled. Creditors and collectors don’t care who the judge ordered to pay what. They go by the original credit agreement. What happens in divorce court has no effect on your creditors.
Although the court ordered for Jill’s husband to pay his share, he did not, and it tanked Jills credit scores because it is on her credit report.
All of it needed to be handled. Creditors and collectors don’t care who the judge ordered to pay what. They go by the original credit agreement. What happens in divorce court has no effect on your creditors.
Jill knows she has to be willing to pay things her ex-husband was court ordered to pay but hasn’t. That is a bitter pill to swallow, but it must be done to make moving on possible. Fortunately, this had been evolving for over several years. Jill was in luck; debt can become too old to collect on and too old to be on your credit report. Those rules differ from state to state.
While we were in the process of reviewing her credit report, we saw some accounts that could legally be too old to collect on. Unfortunately, the only way to find out for sure was to “poke the bear” so to speak. We made the call and helped the agent whose job it was to collect on that debt, come to their conclusion that it was too old to collect on.
That means the whole time we were speaking to this agent, we were asking the right questions that peeled back the layers of the situation. It wasn’t until towards the end of the conversation that the collection person realized that they could not force us to pay the debt. They also realized they could not take Jill to court and seek a garnishment of wages. That was a $6,424 victory. That account would stay on Jill’s credit for one more year, but at least she didn’t have to come up with any money to settle it.
Jill started out with $15,034 in debt and wound up having to pay only $4,207. One credit card that had a balance of $6,424 was too old to collect on, and eight remaining accounts totaled $8610 settled for $4,207.Before we made our first call Jill and I discussed what we would do if the settlement offers did not go in our favor. Having the best-case and the worst-case scenarios all mapped out beforehand gave us great confidence to negotiate hard, while treating our collection representatives with courtesy and respect. No good ever comes from getting ugly on the phone. It makes you look bad and causes the person on the other end of the call to work hard at making your life a lot harder than it needs to be with their company.
We planned our work, and worked our plan, while we used our good manners. Jill now has $0 in overwhelming debt and a solid credit management program in place. Good credit adds points, and bad credit takes points. Since Jill doesn’t have any bad credit taking points and she is maximizing the good credit she already has it won’t surprise me if she closes on her new home in the next 90 days.
Jill is free to move on with her life.
This story is not just a fluke. It is a calculated and well-composed scenario that we may be able to make happen for you. Sign up for our concierge credit service, and we will be happy to guide you through every step of the process.
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