Making on offer to CC companies

latchfordbob

Does anyone know if you can make an offer to a credit card company when clearing a balance. For instance if you owed £3,400 to a company could you ring them up and off them £3,000 to settle your balance and close your account?

exel1966

The best offer you can make would be for £3400!! That way it won't screw your credit record for the next 6 years and you'll have the self satisfaction of clearing the debt in FULL.

Saucepot

You can try. Likely answer is no.

Deals are cut for insolvent creditors. If you are in financial difficulty and approaching insolvency, then your credit record is the least of your worries.

KingElvis

You could do, they will almost certainly say no.

When you go shopping this week, do you intend to make an offer on the full price?

[Deleted User]

KingElvis wrote: »

When you go shopping this week, do you intend to make an offer on the full price?

That's a good point. It's probably better to just steal around 10% of the stuff you were intending on buying and pay the full credit card bill. That way your credit rating stays intact.

* We would like to make it clear that neither zx81 nor any of its affiiliates recommends stealing any percentage of the stuff you intend to buy.

latchfordbob

KingElvis wrote: »

You could do, they will almost certainly say no.

When you go shopping this week, do you intend to make an offer on the full price?

Sometimes.

It appears that I won't be successful if I do ask but debt does get wiped everyday, I've seen it happen and sometimes it is worthwhile to the company to take what is on offer rather than what could potentially be nothing at all.

KingElvis

Mate, if your credit history is already trashed just talk to them in the confidence that should bring.

You can offer them a banana if that's all you can afford.

If you're talking about a final settlement, that normally happens when and if the debt has defaulted and been passed/sold to a collection agenecy. Generally, the older the debt, the better the settlement they will come to. If it's near barred date, they sometimes settle for a song.

lisyloo

It appears that I won't be successful if I do ask but debt does get wiped everyday, I've seen it happen and sometimes it is worthwhile to the company to take what is on offer rather than what could potentially be nothing at all.

You are right, but your financial posistion at the time is an important factor.
If you have no arrears then there is a very high chance any offer will be turned down.
I think you have to be missing payments and in arrears for a while before they will consider offers and by then your credit rating will be screwed anyway.

Are you in difficulty already, or just looking for a saving?
If you are not in difficult and just looking to capitalise then you are wasting your time.

latchfordbob

lisyloo wrote: »

You are right, but your financial posistion at the time is an important factor.
If you have no arrears then there is a very high chance any offer will be turned down.
I think you have to be missing payments and in arrears for a while before they will consider offers and by then your credit rating will be screwed anyway.

Are you in difficulty already, or just looking for a saving?
If you are not in difficult and just looking to capitalise then you are wasting your time.

I'm not in difficulty yet, but it has come to a point where I have to take action now. My credit rating should be fairly good, I'm thinking of getting a loan to clear off credit card payments that will allow me to get it paid off and at the same time free up a bit of monthly income to live on rather than resorting to more credit every month.

KingElvis

If you have a good rating mate, why not get a new cc and blance transfer? you can then pay it off over a year or more with no more interest...just the transfer fee.

lisyloo

I would suggest the dealing with debt board as there are many people who can help you with a positive way forward to manage your debt and budget.

However you are unlikely to get any offer accepted if you aren't in trouble. Also you should want to keep your credit rating in good shape.

The way forward is cutting back, budgetting and paying it back in full.