HSBC Agreed to F&F Settlement! - Advice needed

k993802

Hi,

This morning I received a letter from HSBC agreeing to £2000 to settle the £7000 credit card balance that I have with them, as long as I pay by 13th Aug.

Their letter states that it will be a full & final settlement, but I have read a few threads on MSE about making sure they agree to mark my credit file as 'settled' too. What is the impact to my credit file if they do not mark it as settled?

Here's the word for word excerpt from the HSBC letter:

'Thank you for your recent communication. I am writing to advise you that we will accept £2000 in full and final settlement of your account. This is conditional upon the payment being received and credited to the account by 13 August 2007.

If the payment is not received by the date requested, we will seek repayment of the full amount owing on your account'

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

smudgemanc26

I dont know whether im correct in saying this but im sure if they do not mark it as settled on your credit file/report they can come back and chase you for the outstanding monies at a later date.

rog2

Hi k9 - Whilst you do have the all important words 'Full and Final Settlement' I think you should tell them that your offer is also conditional on the fact that they will mark any default, on your Credit File as 'Settled' or 'Satisfied'.
It does seem like a good offer by HSBC - if you can afford it.

k993802

Thanks for your comments, my personal view would be to take HSBC's letter to be legally binding ('full and final settlement') and as such would be suprised if they attempted to claim the balance at some point in the future!

rog2

k993802 wrote: »

Thanks for your comments, my personal view would be to take HSBC's letter to be legally binding ('full and final settlement') and as such would be suprised if they attempted to claim the balance at some point in the future!

It IS legally binding, if it contains the words 'Full and Final Settlement'.

davek1

it is deffo legally binding. To all intents and purposes they are entering into a contract with you, agreeeing to write off the remaining debt for payment of £2,000.

Snatch their hand off its a fantastic offer!!

To be honest i'm not sure that them agreeing to mark your credit file as settled will make much difference. i would still accept.

Dave

helenm1005

Let us oin on the secret how you managed to get this worked out with them - I'm trying to sort things out for F & F with a couple of companies and not sure how to go about things once they turn the first offer down.

k993802

Thanks for your input peeps!

LOL - my secret? a debt councelling service like CCCS paid for by my company. Having drawn up a statement of income and expenditure last November, I've been making reduced payments to my creditors (all registered as defaulted). I've had one CCJ - that ruled that I must pay the creditor what I'd already been paying... no biggy.

They sent out F&F settlement offers (30%) two weeks ago and to my delight HSBC just agreed to it straight away. (although, they have been charging the full credit card interest monthly - no frozen interest from them!).

so far:
HSBC agreed
RBS have declined
A&L have declined

...oh and the reason why I didn't just ask my debt councellor about the F&F settlement and 'credit file note' was because she's on holiday until next week and I thought I'd tap the seemingly limitless information resource that is MSE!

rog2

Well done K9 - I hope that you get a similar result with RBS and A&L. :T :T

May I ask if the debt counselling service was free?

k993802

Thanks rog2,

Yes its free. The company I work for pay for an employee crisis councellor company to deal with any problems we may run into. Its a confidential service - so no-one at work knows. I guess the company view is that its better to help its employees in a crisis and get them focused back on work ASAP.

lol - thanks for your support. A&L, RBS and HSBC are one of 13 different creditors holding a total of 22 seperate accounts (loan/credit card/current account) that I have sent out F&F Settlement offers to. I'm awaiting the other 19 replies!

We'll get there in the end!

Good luck to everyone else who has F&F Settlements on the cards.