bad credit question

If you quit paying 5 years ago, not as long as you think.

1) Check the statute of limitations. In La, for open-ended (credit card) accounts, it's 3 years. That means, generally, 3 years after your last payment, you cannot be sued for this debt.

2) Seven-year rule on the credit report. After seven years, the debt will drop of your report and score.

If you do choose to pay (which I recommend since you do owe it), do not settle with them. In fact, do not even speak to them over the phone.

The first thing you need to do is send them a certified return-receipt verification of debt. They are legally required to verify a few things to you. 1) that you actually owe the debt (we know you do, but this is just to improve your position.), and 2) that they actually legally own the debt.

If you don't hear back in 30 days, you can petition to have this entire debt removed from your credit report, since they did not respond.

If you do hear back with the appropriate verification, send a pay-for-delete offer. Match their settlement offers, and I'd even throw some extra in there, and offer to pay it off for deletion of the account with the reporting bureaus.

It's a quid pro quo that most collection agencies would be retarded not to take. Again, send this offer (you can google both pay-for-delete letters and debt verification letters to find good templates and advice), certified return receipt mail, and wait.

In these cases, you can still settle your debt without having it marked settled (which is not good) and have the debt removed from your report.