I Need Some Help With A Old Credit Debt

Q: when we were really poor for some reason we were given credit cards. well as sometimes happens we could not pay the bills. well over the years we paid two of them off. but one of them we had not heard from for years. well last month we get a letter from an attorney wanting to collect it. it is only 1500.00 well we just got a credit report and it shows the account was charged off. it shows the citibank open date of 6-94 and 9-99 balance date. I can't remember but most likely we stopped paying a couple years after we got it at most. three different lines (I think the report gets the info from three different places one says charge off the other says charged off account and the third says account closed at grantors request reported by subscriber. so I take it the account is history? the credit limit was only 500 and the late fees and stuff added up the 1500.00 but the attorney shows about 2500 owed and would settle for 2300.00 the attorney was hired by some collection agency for citibank. but if it has been charged off they should know that right?

A: _so I found out when they called tonight. from what I can remember we charged a little over 500.00 on this card. that was the limit. and racked up 1000.00 in fee's. the debt shows 1533.00 but when we got the letter from the lawyer they show we owe 25.00 but would settle for 2300.00 so they added another 1000.00 in fee's onto the debt. they say we made a payment in 99 so that's where the 7 years start. I doubt we made a payment but I don't have anything to show one way or the other. but no I can't afford it. I made 100.00 monthly payments on the last ones but that was a pretty big burden most of the time. they won't even take that on this one. and I sure as hell would not pay them 2500.00 on a 500.00 debt. _Tell the lawyer he can either settle for what you can afford to pay, or he can get nothing. Ask the attorney which choice he prefers; nothing or something. Remind this lawyer that suing you would only end up costing him more money than he can possibly get out of you. The lawyer is trying to play hard ball with you. You can either chose to play that game by the lawyer's rules, or you can get in the driver's seat and play your own game of hard ball with the attorney. _It would help if you said what state you live in. In California the Statute of Limitations for debts of this kind is 4 years, so you could tell the attorney to take a long walk off a short pier. You might try re-posting this in misc.legal.moderated and mention what _state_ you are in. If your local statute of limitations is 4 years or less, you are off the hook legally. Just don't do anything that could be used as an admission that you still owe the debt. If you want to settle, tell the attorney that you don't admit owing the debt but that you will pay $X to make the problem go away. And btw if the SoL is 5 years in your state, you will be off the hook unless the attorney files suit within the next two months. Which may or may not explain why he's suddenly there playing hardball with you. Even if he does file suit, he won't be able to get more than you have. If that's a pittance, he'll be ahead settling for whatever you can pay. Just DON'T ADMIT TO ANYTHING .

I Need Some Help With A Old Credit Debt

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