My credit repair is about done and I would like to negotiate my remaining debt. Any advice?
Congratulations on your credit repair progress so far! You are right in thinking about negotiating your remaining debt at this point. But before discussing the best way to move forward, let’s review the steps we have taken in the credit repair process to get you to the point that you are able to do this.
We Removed Erroneous Accounts
When you started the Sky Blue credit repair program you had a lot of collections on your credit reports that were not valid. This was not hard for us to spot because, in some cases, there were as many as three collection accounts for a single original debt. All of these duplicate accounts have been removed.
And Disputed Everything Questionable
In addition we determined that several other collection accounts were questionable based on other factors, and disputed those for you as well. These too have been removed. The point here is that it would have been a costly mistake to contact any of these non-compliant collectors. Interestingly, you would have discovered that most of them would have taken your money!
One Last Cleanup
Now that you are down to the last few collections, which we are assuming to be legitimate, I will suggest two more steps before starting the negotiation process. Since you intend to pay these collections anyway there is no harm in disputing these accounts with the credit bureaus. You have already learned that collectors sell debt regularly. If we dispute these accounts and they vanish, so be it. But if they are verified, as I expect they will be, we will do one last thing before offering them money.
Let’s Validate the Debt
Debt validation is a part of our credit repair service. Debt validation as you probably recall should be done within thirty days of you receiving a collection letter, and you have no collection letters on these accounts. But I would like to validate this debt for you before you start negotiation. You can get collection letters on these accounts by contacting the collector and telling them that you might be willing to pay them, but you would like something in writing. Their written communication will always be in the form of a collection letter, which means that we can validate the debt. This is a little tricky, but it serves a good purpose.
Now it’s Time!
If the collector cannot validate the debt they need to stop collecting and reporting. We will be asking them for an accounting of the amount due. So if they do validate the debt you will have a great starting point for negotiation.