Here is a good example of a settlement negotiated by one of my clients.
The agreement
is for a payment of $8,100 against an account balance of $23,073.43, a 35% settlement resulting in net
savings of $14,973.43. A typical third-party debt settlement company would have
charged a fee of $3,461 to accomplish the same deal (based on 15% of the total debt). Yet the client
accomplished this on their own without the need for a professional negotiator. Of course, I have nothing
against professional negotiators, especially since I used to be one! But why pay fees if you don't have to?
Why would a creditor forgive 65% of a debt like this? They simply made a business decision to cut their losses.
It was better
for the creditor to take 35 cents on the dollar than to risk collecting nothing if the client chose to
file bankruptcy instead. There is no rocket science involved in the field of debt settlement. It's mostly
a matter of understanding how the collection process works.
Note: The image file below is a scanned reproduction of a faxed original. The
client's name, address,
and account information have been deleted to protect their privacy. No other alterations have been made
in any way to the originals or the digital images.
