Can I negotiate a credit card settlement by stopping payments?
"This would be on your credit for ~8 years.   If it goes according to your plan, it will take 6 months to a year to do the settlement by getting behind enough to let it go to collections and then settling.   The write-off will then be on your credit record for 7 years before it ""falls off"". Your cash out refinance would have to cover you for at least the next 8 years to be valuable. And you have a lot of assumptions to get there: In short, there's one way (or only a few ways) this works out well in your favor.  There are many ways that this has the chance to hurt you.    I don't like ""investments"" with those kind of odds." "At no point is it ever a good idea to ""stop making payments to show them [you] mean business"". When you signed up for the credit card account, you agreed to pay what you charged, and any applicable interested accrued on the accounts. You are legally responsible for that debt, and you can be sued, if they are so inclined. Many times, settlement agencies are employed because a risk assessment operator (or whatever they're called at your cc company) calculated that they are currently financially better off settling for a reduced balance than attempting to chase you for the full amount. As soon as the terms of your refinance hits your credit history, that changes. To reiterate and make it clear: This is a very dangerous approach to breaking credit card debt, and I would not advise that anybody proceed with it. EDIT: If you offer 50% of the balance in a lump sum payment, they decline, and you continue with non-payment, they have reason to believe that you are financially capable of making payments, and are much more likely to seek legal action." This strategy will have long lasting effects since negative items can persist for many years, making financing a home difficult, the primary source of household credit. It is also very risky.  You can play hard, but then the creditor may choose you to be the one that they make an example out of by suing you for a judgement that allows them to empty your accounts and garnish your wages. If you have no record of late payments, or they are old and/or few, your credit score will quickly shoot up if you pay down to 10% of the balance, keep the cards, and maintain that balance rate. This strategy will have them begging you to take on more credit with offers of lower interest rates.  The less credit you take on, the more they'll throw at you, and when it comes time to purchase a home, more home can be bought because your interest rates will be lower.
"Debts do not inherit to the children. You are absolutely not liable for your parent's debt, in any way whatsoever. **  Collection agents will lie about this; tricking you is their job, and your job is to tell them Heck no, do I look like an idiot? When a person dies, all their personal assets (and debts) go to a fictitious entity called the Estate.  This is a holder for the person's assets until they can be dispositioned finally.  The estate is managed by a living person, sometimes a company (law firm), called an Executor.  Similar to a corporation which is shutting down business, the Executor's job is to act on behalf of the Estate, and in the Estate's best interest (not his own).  For instance he can't decide, in his capacity as executor, to give all the estate's money to himself.  He has to loyally and selflessly follow state law and any living-trust or wills that may be in place. This role is not for everyone.  You can't just decide ""la la la, I'm going to live in their house now"", that is squatting.  The house is an asset and someone inherited that, as dictated by will, trust or state law.  That has to be worked out legally.  Once they inherit the house, you have to negotiate with them about living there. If you want to live there now, negotiate to rent the house from the estate. This is an efficient way to funnel money into the estate for what I discuss later.** The Estate has assets, and it has debts. Some debts extinguish on the death of the natural person, e.g. student loans, depending on the contract and state law. Did you know corporations are considered a ""person""?  (that's what Citizens United was all about.)  So are estates - both are fictitious persons. The executor can act like a person in that sense.   If you have unsecured debt, how can a creditor motivate you to pay?  They can annoy and harass you.  They can burn your credit rating.  Or they can sue you and try to take your assets - but suing is also expensive for them.  This is not widely understood, but anyone at any time can go to their creditors and say  ""Hey creditor, I'm not gonna pay you $10,000.  Tough buffaloes.  You can sue me, good luck with that.  Or, I'll make you a deal.  I'll offer you $2000 to settle this debt.  What say you?  And you'll get one of two answers.  Either ""OK"" or ""Nice try, let's try $7000.""  If the latter, you start into the cycle of haggling, ""3000."" ""6000."" ""4000."" ""5000. ""Split the difference, $4500."" ""OK.""  This is always a one-time, lump sum, one-shot payoff, never partial payments.  Creditors will try to convince you to make partial payments.  Don't do it.  Anyone can do that at any time.  Why don't living people do this every day?   How about an Estate?  Estates are fictitious persons, they don't have a ""morality"", they have a fiduciary duty. Do they plan on borrowing any more money? Nope. Their credit rating is already 0. They owe no loyalty to USBank. Actually, the executor's fiduciary duty is to get the most possible money for the assets, and settle the debts for the least.  So I argue it's unethical to fail to haggle down this debt.  If an executor is ""not a haggler"" or has a moral issue with shortchanging creditors, he is shortchanging the heirs, and he can be sued for that personally - because he has a fiduciary duty to the heirs, not Chase Bank.  Like I say, the job is not for everyone. The estate should also make sure to check the paperwork for any other way to escape the debt: does it extinguish on death?  Is the debt time-barred? Can they really prove it's valid?  Etc.  It's not personal, it's business.  The estate should not make monthly payments (no credit rating to protect) and should not pay one dime to a creditor except for a one-shot final settlement. Is it secured debt? Let them take the asset. (unless an heir really wants it).  When a person dies with a lot of unsecured debt, it's often the case that they don't have a lot of cash lying around.  The estate must sell off assets to raise the cash to settle with the creditors.  Now here's where things get ugly with the house.  ** The estate should try to raise money any other way, but it may have to sell the house to pay the creditors. For the people who would otherwise inherit the house, it may be in their best  interest to pay off that debt. Check with lawyers in your area, but it may also be possible for the estate to take a mortgage on the house, use the mortgage cash to pay off the estate's debts (still haggle!), and then bequeath the house-and-mortgage to the heirs.  The mortgage lender would have to be on-board with all of this.  Then, the heirs would owe the mortgage.   Good chance it would be a small mortgage on a big equity, e.g. a $20,000 mortgage on a $100,000 house.  Banks love those." "These agencies consolidate your debt and make it an easy monthly instalment for you. They also try to negotiate with credit cards. They do so for a fee. Other option is to not pay the debt. During this time , expect credit cards to keep sending you bills and reminders and ways to contact you. Once it is not paid for a significant amount of time ( 18 months ) , the lender will ""sell"" your debt to a collection agency. You will start getting bills from collection agencies. Collection agencies can settle for up to 40 % of the actual debt. So if you had 5 credit cards , you would have 5 different collection agencies trying to get in touch with you. You can call them and tell them that you cannot pay the full amount. They will offer you settlements which you can accept or decline. The longer the unpaid debt , the more the discount they will offer. One very important thing to remember is that the unpaid amount will be sent to you on a 1099-c form . This means you have to recognize this as income. It is applicable to the year when the debt is settled. In a nut shell , you owe 120,000. You don't pay. Credit cards keeps calling you. You don't pay. After 12-18 months , they handover your debt to collection agencies. Collection agencies will try to get in touch with you. Send you lawsuit letters. You call and settle for say 50,000. You pay off 50,000 in 2016. Your debt is settled. But wait you will get 1099-C forms from different agencies totaling 70,000 ( unpaid debt ). You will have to declare that as income and you will owe tax on that. Assuming say 30 % tax you will have to pay up 21,000 as tax to IRS assuming no other income for simplicity. SO what you did was pay up 50 + 21 = 71,000 and settled the debt of 120,000. Your credit score will be much better than if you never paid at all." In a perfect the world, the most ideal solution would be to find a way to pay back all of your debt so that your credit will not be affected any further. Unfortunately, it does not work this way most of the time. Debt settlement is where you work with a creditor to settle your a credit card debt for less than the full amount owed. This could be a very viable solution for you instead of filing for bankruptcy. However, there are many scams out there when it applies to debt settlement so you must tread carefully. Debt settlement can only occur when you're behind on your payments. If you are currently paying off your payments successfully, the creditor has no obligation to settle when they think you should be able to pay it fully back. "One is a choice the other is not. While they are both liabilities on the balance sheet, in the real world they are quite different.   We do not feel as much ownership over our money that goes to interest payments as we do over our tax payments.  Taxes pay for our government and the services it provides.  Interest, on the other hand, is what we pay in order to have a bank loan us money.  Similar to paying for a good or service obtained from some other business, we do not feel we have a say in what the bank does with that money.  If we disapprove of a business' practices, we stop doing business with them; assuming there are other choices.  We can not practically avoid dealing with our government.   We certainly feel that we should have a say in what is done with our tax money.  I doubt there is anyone in the world that completely approves of their government's spending.  It is very easy to feel marginalized with regard to our tax payments.  For example, some people feel resentment because their taxes fund the welfare rolls. All that said, I believe there is little overlap between the two groups.  It seems to me that you are referring to those with large amounts of high interest (e.g. credit card) debt.  I doubt that a large percentage of them are scouring the tax laws, looking for deductions and loopholes.  If they had that mindset, they would also be working hard to get out of the hole they are in.   In summary, we choose to pay a financial adviser, to take out a loan or to obtain a credit card.  We do not choose to pay taxes.  Since taxes are supposed to pay for our government and things which should benefit everyone, we want a say in what is done with it.  This is also the case because it is forced on us.  (""Fine son, I'll lend you some money, but I don't want you buying cigarettes with it."")  Since our say is limited and we likely will not approve of everything our government does, we want to exert what control we do have: reduce our payments as best we can." "From what I understand, they basically hold on to your money while you stop paying your debt.  They keep it in an account and negotiate on your behalf. The longer you go without paying, the less the debt collector is willing to take and at some point, they will settle.  So they take the money you've been putting into their ""account"" and pay it down.  Repeat the process for all your accounts. I basically did this, without using a service. I had $17,000 on one card and they bumped the interest rate to 29%, and I had lost my job. I didn't pay it for 7 months.  I just planned on filing bankruptcy.  They finally called me up and said, if you can pay $250 a month, until it's paid off, we will drop the interest to 0% and forgive all your late fees. I did that, and five years later it was paid off. Similar situation happened on my other cards.  It seems once they realize you can't pay, is when they're willing to give you a break.  It'd be nice they just never jacked up your rate to 30% though. So, forget the service, just do it yourself.  Call them up and ask, and if they don't budge, don't pay it. Of course your credit will be shot.  But I'm back in the 700s, so anything is possible over time." Is this the time of year this board attracts question regarding the law and how to skirt it?  I've done as you suggested. I happened to have a month that I was going to blow through the $12000 limit I had on my credit card. So as the balance crossed $8000, I paid that amount, and when the bill was cut, it was just $4000 or so. Scrutiny would show the reason for partial payments was obvious, I wanted to avoid going over limit. I wouldn't have done so just to avoid the $10,000 transaction. Since then, I've asked that the limit be raised in case I have another wild month. While technically true, a card issuer can cancel your card for almost any reason they want, it's highly unlikely they'll cancel it because you pay your bills! There are many, many people out there that pay their bills in full every month without ever paying a cent in credit card interest. I wouldn't ever purposefully incur any interest on a credit card. Related anecdote: I used to have a credit card that I only used for gas purchases because they gave 5% off for fuel. The issuer eventually discontinued the program (I assume because people like me took advantage of it.) So while they didn't cancel my card, the bonus eventually went away. I miss that card. My conclusion: if you can take advantage of promotional rates, by all means, go for it. You don't owe them any favors. Enjoy it as long as it lasts. "This is most likely protecting Square's relationship with Visa/Mastercard/AMEX/etc. Credit card companies typically charge their customers a much higher interest rate with no grace period on cash advances (withdrawals made from an ATM using a credit card). If you use Square to generate something that looks like a ""merchandise transaction"" but instead just hand over a wad of banknotes, you're forcing the credit card company to apply their cheaper ""purchases"" interest rate on the transaction, plus award any applicable cashback offers†, etc. Square would absolutely profit off of this, but since it would result in less revenue for the partner credit card companies, that would quickly sour the relationship and could even result in them terminating their agreements with Square altogether. † This is the kind of activity they are trying to prevent:  1. Bill yourself $5,000 for ""merchandise"", but instead give yourself cash.  2. Earn 1.5% cashback ($75).  3. Use $4,925 of the cash and a $75 statement credit to pay your credit card statement.  4. Pocket the difference.  5. Repeat. Note, the fees involved probably negate any potential gain shown in this example, but I'm sure with enough creative thinking someone would figure out a way to game the system if it wasn't expressly forbidden in the terms of service"