Do I offer a settlement to my credit card companies

doug81

I got myself into a financial mess back in 2010 and received 6 defaults for amounts mostly over £4000.

I am now paying them off £5 each per month and have all the interest frozen.

I now want to be able to remortgage my property so I need my credit rating to be excellent so I get a good deal.

I have had some success offering reduced amounts to some credit card companies. They still show on my credit expert as defaults but now show as satisfied.

If I offer a reduced amount obviously I can save thousands of pounds which is great. But will my credit rating be better if I was able to pay off the balance in full?

My gut feeling is I want to pay reduced amounts due to the money I could save but now my credit rating is becoming more important to me as it is starting to improve.

Thanks

Doug

_Andy_

With the adverse credit you can forget about using any high street lender for the remortgage

[Deleted User]

Defaulting on more than £4000 on six accounts is not getting yourself into a financial mess. It's the financial equivalent of a morbidly obese person acting shocked when someone points out that they're a bit on the tubby side. It's not the kind of thing that happens overnight...

I would recommend paying back the money that you owe.

If you were a lender, would you want to give credit to someone who has demonstrated that they can't handle it responsibly and then try to settle without paying back the amount in full?

That might sound harsh but it is exactly what an underwriter will think and it is also exactly the kind of behaviour (albeit on a much smaller scale) that has gotten our economy into the state it is now. That and the endless torrent of (not all but many) greedy people scrabbling as much money (PPI etc) from the banks as they can get, whether it was mis-sold or not.

Demonstrate some responsibility and pay back the money. Rant over.