Full and Final - accept this offer?

Gonzo1987

I have an outstanding debt of £343 regarding a loan I had back in 2010 and defaulted on.

I sent an email offering full and final payment of £100, and have recieved this response

We refer to your recent communication.

We refer to your recent offer of payment but regrettably must inform you that your offer is not acceptable to us.

However, we do wish to be constructive in the hope that we can resolve your account.

Therefore, we are prepared to accept the sum of £197.32 in full and final settlement of your account, payable by the 30th September 2014.

We consider this sum to be very fair and subject to clearance of funds, your account will be regarded as paid in full. Furthermore, any entry with the credit reference agencies will be updated to show satisfied.

Is this a fair amount?

My main aim is to just get my debts paid off and with some careful planning and saving I can afford this amount by the end of September - will encourage me to sort my ebay selling out!!

fatbelly

If you can't pay until the end of September, you could have another go at getting the figure down.

What about offering to meet them half way at £150?

Furthermore, any entry with the credit reference agencies will be updated to show satisfied.

On the other hand this is generous of them. You may consider it worth going for the offer as it stands in case they come back with 'OK but we'll mark it partially settled'

matttye

Bite their hand off!

They're not obliged to accept a reduction and they're even throwing in an offer to mark your file as 'satisfied.'

No brainer IMO.

Meatloaf1981

Just get them to confirm the offer in writing!!

Gonzo1987

I've asked them to confirm in writing the debt will be shown as 'satisfied' and not partially on my credit report and then I think I will accept the offer. :-) Then just 2 left to go!

Gonzo1987

I recieved this reply today.... I don't really understand what impact this will have on my credit file? Negative? positive?

We can confirm once the sum of £197.32 has been paid your credit file will be updated to practically satisfied, if you wish for it to be shown as paid in full you will have to pay the outstanding balance of £343.17.

I'm so confused!

fatbelly

practically satisfied?

I think you're dealing with someone who is barely literate.

The correct mark is partially settled. That's why we said earlier that a 'satisfied' mark was unusually generous.

A partially settled mark is better than an unsatisfied default but obviously not as good as satisfied.

AFK_Matrix

I'd be refering them back to the original reply from them where they have said it will be satisfied as they seem to be going back on what they said. Also ask them to clarify that they meant partially in stead of practically and ask the person who wrote that to go and learn some english lol.

National_Debtline

Gonzo1987 wrote: »

I recieved this reply today.... I don't really understand what impact this will have on my credit file? Negative? positive?

We can confirm once the sum of £197.32 has been paid your credit file will be updated to practically satisfied, if you wish for it to be shown as paid in full you will have to pay the outstanding balance of £343.17.

I'm so confused!

Hi Gonzo

Let's be generous and put it down to a predictive text malfunction on their part...

Either way, this is a situation where you don't want any ambiguity whatsoever in their replies.

To echo fatbelly, a "partially settled" marker on your credit file (which seems the most likely outcome to me) isn't as beneficial to you as "satisfied". The flip side is that you would no longer have that debt to service, so you would be that much better off financially.

Just for reference, this is our fact sheet on making such settlement offers:

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/24%20EW%20Full%20and%20final%20settlement%20offers/Default.aspx

Regards

Dennis
Twitter: @natdebtline

glentoran99

Just a wee bit confused, each one of my creditors said they would mark my file as partially satisfied, however they all appear to have marked as satisfied, and one was marked as settled by equifax when i questioned the fact it wasnt closed and should have been, Whats the difference between settled and satisfied? all balances show as 0

does that mean they havent actually marked them as partially satisfied or would fully satisfied by marked differently?