Link financial f&f

hrsnd4

So have been self managing a £57k pile of defaulted credit card debt for the last 18 months and have got this down to £22k. Of this amount left link financial have purchased four cards totalling £12k and they are being somewhat difficult to negotiate with. Best offer so far is 80% whereas others have settled anywhere between 0% charitable write off and 50%, currently averaging 40% on f&f. Any tips to get them down or is perseverance the best policy.

sourcrates

Look at the number of posts on this board alone asking the same question.

The answer is Link like to recoup as much of their initial outlay as possible, its the way they do there business.

All you can do is keep on trying, you have to make them think that your offer represents the very best return they can hope to get, so you have to be, lets say, creative in your approach to this, use your imagination, think in what scenario would they choose to accept this one off payment, over getting, say payments on a regular basis.

Once you figure something out, run with it, see how you fair.

User_060921

interested to learn what might be considered a creative approach. Asking for a friend


Also, to the o/p how did you get a 0 per cent F+F?

hrsnd4

Not too sure called up and offered a settlement at 30% and explained circumstances and they decided to reject in favour of writing off balance and not even defaulting me. Luck of the draw I suppose. 

Suppose with link I will continue with the £1 a month agreement until they relent on my f&f offer at a % I am happy with. 

User_060921

you offered 30 per cent and they said, no no no - have it as a gift? Wow

xgingerx

Hi, fyi I managed to finally settle for 37% around 2 weeks ago after around 3 months of paying £5 a month, first few months they stuck to settlements of 60-70% of the balance, kept going in low offers of 20%

Think just keep trying as things can change monthly to what they will accept

hrsnd4

Did you give any background to the offers through their webpage settlement tool or was this over the phone. Think I will continue offering periodically and see what they say

zenshi

I had been paying £5 for about 4 years then nothing since 1st lockdown. Still refusing my offers and countering at only 10% discount

Suseka97

zenshi said:

I had been paying £5 for about 4 years then nothing since 1st lockdown. Still refusing my offers and countering at only 10% discount

Have you checked out whether they can provide the necessary paperwork (CCA) to enforce the debt?  If you haven't, then you should.  If you think about it a DCA really can play the 'long game' because they have absolutely nothing to lose by doing so.  If a debt is enforceable and they've bought it for pennies to the pound they can afford to wait it out.  My advice would be to continue making no payments and stop offering an F&F.  Go 'radar silent' for a while, a long while, and see what they do next - but do, first, send off a CCA request if you haven't already done so.

zenshi

Suseka97 said:

zenshi said:

I had been paying £5 for about 4 years then nothing since 1st lockdown. Still refusing my offers and countering at only 10% discount

Have you checked out whether they can provide the necessary paperwork (CCA) to enforce the debt?  If you haven't, then you should.  If you think about it a DCA really can play the 'long game' because they have absolutely nothing to lose by doing so.  If a debt is enforceable and they've bought it for pennies to the pound they can afford to wait it out.  My advice would be to continue making no payments and stop offering an F&F.  Go 'radar silent' for a while, a long while, and see what they do next - but do, first, send off a CCA request if you haven't already done so.

CCA’d several years ago. Sadly all came back correct. Had letter last week asking to contact re setting up payments again which I was going to do for July. Maybe I won’t bother?!

hrsnd4

Finally success with link financial they agreed to settle at under 60% which after only ever offering small reductions I am happy with over 40% off. Now leaves me £10k to clear and will be debt free after owing £57k less than 2 years ago.