I need some help with a old credit debt.
when we were really poor for some reason we were given credit cards. well as
sometimes happens we could not pay the bills. well over the years we paid two of
them off. but one of them we had not heard from for years. well last month we
get a letter from an attorney wanting to collect it. it is only 1500.00 well we
just got a credit report and it shows the account was charged off. it shows the
citibank open date of 6-94 and 9-99 balance date. I can't remember but most
likely we stopped paying a couple years after we got it at most. three different
lines (I think the report gets the info from three different places one says
charge off the other says charged off account and the third says account closed
at grantors request reported by subscriber.
so I take it the account is history? the credit limit was only 500 and the
late fees and stuff added up the 1500.00 but the attorney shows about 2500 owed
and would settle for 2300.00
the attorney was hired by some collection agency for citibank. but if it has
been charged off they should know that right?
It would help if you said what state you live in. In California the
Statute of Limitations for debts of this kind is 4 years, so you could
tell the attorney to take a long walk off a short pier. You might try
re-posting this in misc.legal.moderated and mention what _state_ you
are in.
If your local statute of limitations is 4 years or less, you are off
the hook legally. Just don't do anything that could be used as an
admission that you still owe the debt.
If you want to settle, tell the attorney that you don't admit owing
the debt but that you will pay $X to make the problem go away.
And btw if the SoL is 5 years in your state, you will be off the hook
unless the attorney files suit within the next two months. Which may
or may not explain why he's suddenly there playing hardball with you.
Even if he does file suit, he won't be able to get more than you have.
If that's a pittance, he'll be ahead settling for whatever you can
pay. Just DON'T ADMIT TO ANYTHING.
Charged off means Citibank has given up on you ever paying and sold it
off to somebody else to collect on -- if they can. But if the SoL has
expired, you can tell them to get lost.
The chargeoff will be on your credit report for 7 years from your last
payment, that's until 9/06. There's probably not much you can do at
this point to improve your credit report, so there's not much
incentive for you to scrimp and do without in order to pay this.
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