Making an offer to a collection agency

PMB74

Hi all

First post for me... and a bit of a long one, sorry!

Cutting a very long story as short as possible... I hit a problem 7 years ago. I started a business and it all went wrong, I went months without pay and lost money in the business and my personal debts mounted up. No money was coming in and the credit cards and loans weren't being repiad. I was days away from losing my house, had no job and owed just shy of £80,000 in my mid-20's - mix of personal and business debts roughly 60/40. I did the old bury the head in the sand job and got endless collection letters rather than addressing the problem head on.

I got a new job and worked hard at clearing the debts as much as possible and now have just 2 companies left to repay. I got lucky with property in that period which helped clear big chunks of debt at a time. Things have picked up to such a point I now have a credit card again (keeping that WELL under control and only really got it to put petrol on each month to help rebuild my credit rating) and a mortgage. 7 years ago I never thought I'd be in this position and owning the kind of house I do, so anyone down about their situation who happens to read this - it's a hard slog, but it CAN be done!

In 3 months one of the final 2 companies I'm repaying will be fully paid up and leave just 1 debt. That debt still has £8,000 to go and I'm repaying £150 per month, so there's still a long way to go with that debt.

It was a loan for £15,000. At the time they added all future interest payments to the debt when it was passed to a debt collection agency, and came in at around £20,000. So as you can see I've repaid 60% of the debt and no doubt a LOT more than the collection agency paid to take the debt on.

Does anyone think it is worth making this agency an offer to repay a part of what's left as a full and final settlement? I'm due a bonus next month of around £1500 and think it would be nice to end this year without any of the remaining £80k still being paid off. Plus, hopefully with a kiddie on the way next year that extra £150 a month would go a long way.

Any of you experts got an opinion on this? Would they go for it? How should I go about making such an offer? Would it effect my credit file? Given that this debt is already on there and likely to remain on there for 5+ years anyway... When I got my mortgage 3 defaults were still showing, 1 as repaid and 2 still being paid, so things haven't been too bad for me anyway, but don't want to knock it back down again after finally getting up to a "Good" rating with Equifax at the start of this year!

Thanks in advance!

aj3001

No experience really in DCA's, but the worst I can imagine happening is them saying "no, pay it all as you currently are doing"

Someone else should be able to clarify this though

rog2

Not an expert (that's why I'm on this board too!). There are some good template letters on the National Debtline site (link at top of page) for 'full and final settlement offers'.