Full & Final Settlement agreed, but help needed!

abouttostartagain

Hi all,

I sent off my full and final settlement offers on Monday, and have just received the first one back.

It's from Collect Direct (for M&S Money) Balance £5240.05, accepted £2167.53.

The letter states that it will accept that figure in F&F settlement and will mark my file as satisfied, however "indicators will show that the full balance was not recovered and a smaller sum was accepted in settlement"

Will further companies see this as a bad thing against me?

I assumed it would just say as "satisfied in full"

I'm :j that they accepted my pro-rata offer (approx 42%) but am worried it will still affect my credit rating.

Any advice / tips before I send off a cheque?

Thanks,

Jess

fermi

Before you accept an offer you should have it in writing that:

a) Your/their offer is to be accepted a "Full & Final Settlement" and you will have no further liability for the debt.
b) The entries on your credit references should be marked in some way to indicate that the debt is settled/satisfied or partially settled/satisfied, with no outstanding balance.

Have a read through this factsheet.

Link: Factsheet | Full & Final Settlement offers

I should just add that it IS acceptable in a "Full & Final Settlement" for the entry on your Credit Reference Files to be marked as "partially settled" or "partially satisfied" AS LONG as there is no balance outstanding.

Because there has been some confusion on this issue, I checked this with both the Information Commissioner and National Debtline. Particularly with NDL, as their factsheet makes no mention of it.

The Information Commissioner's Office directed me to one of their publications in which they wrote:

Where the lender has accepted as part of a negotiated settlement a payment that is less than the outstanding amount and the customer has agreed as part of the settlement how their credit record will be affected:

In these circumstances, we understand a lender may be reluctant to mark the entry as ‘satisfied’ or ‘settled’. However the entry must record the position adequately, for example, by showing that no further monies are expected and the account was partially paid.

And National Debtline clarified the difference between that and their factsheet by writing:

We note that you require clarification regarding full and final settlement offers because the information on our fact sheet and the Information Commissioner’s website seem to differ.

You are correct in thinking that it is important for you to have confirmation from the creditor that your offer is accepted as full and final settlement. You must also ensure that you keep this confirmation for at least 6.5 years in case the debt is passed onto another debt collection agency in error.

If the creditor will agree to mark the credit file as satisfied this would be an excellent result for you as it would look better on your credit file. However, your credit file should show an accurate credit history and to mark a debt as ‘satisfied’ when it has only been partially satisfied could be deemed to be misleading. Therefore the creditors are well within their rights to mark your credit reference file partially settled/satisfied.

If you are in doubt whether to accept the conditions of the offer, then it would be a good idea to discuss this with a professional advisor. You can call National Debtline free on Tel: 0808 808 4000, or CCCS on Tel: 0800 138 1111.

abouttostartagain

Thank you - I'll phone the National Debt Line later to clarify as I don't want them (or another DCA) chasing the balance years down the line.

Thank you for taking the time to respond :T

Jess

stapeley

If you don,t get these debts sorted out now , then your credit rating is shot anyway. How long would it take to clear paying the amounts you are now ? I would never ever want to take on credit again .

Jindebt

sorry to lift up a old thread.

that seems a great offer you have agreed there!

was that your lowest and first offer?