Charge off sold and double the original debt?

Question

I had a few credit cards during college that I foolishly charged off and now I am trying to pay them and fix my credit. After updating my credit information, I attempted to contact each credit company one by one to pay them off as money became available starting with the lowest debt first. I paid off two accounts and followed up on them to make sure they show up as "paid."

Recently two of the bigger accounts seem to have gotten sold to a collection agency that is now on one account asking for almost double the original debt and the other account asking for over the double the original debt. My plan to pay them off has now been set back, I don't think this is fair and was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what to do to resolve this problem.

Answer 1

Generally it takes years for a charged off debt to double (more or less) from the original debt. If it has been quite awhile there is a possibility that you are out of the legal collecting SOL on the debts.

If you are out of SOL, you have a choice of how to deal with the collection agencies.

If you are out of SOL you can pay
or
you can send them a SOL letter that tells them the debt is past the legal SOL for collections.

Either way you should send a debt validation letter. Make sure that the amount they are requesting is the legal amount and hasn't been illegally inflated and that they have a legal right to collect the debt - that they purchased it or it was assigned to them. (it's not unheard of for collection agencies to try to collect on debts they have no business collecting on)

Send every letter certified mail return receipt.

If you want to pay, you should demand they delete any tradeline they have placed on your reports upon payment.
A paid negative is still a negative.
Collection agencies make deals every day to pay for delete.
Also, if the debt is past the legal collecting SOL or close to it, and you are probably dealing with a junk debt buyer who purchased the debt for literally pennies.

Make a deal with them to pay only a portion of the debt as payment in full. You may have to pay taxes on the forgiven amount, if they even bother to send the tax form. But it would probably be less than the forgiven amount and also the money wouldn't go to the JDB. (if it were me, I'd rather pay the government then a junk debt buyer)

If you are past the legal SOL for collection, you have the legal right to send a SOL letter after receiving validation from them or 35 days have passed from the date they signed the green card for your debt validation request.

If you plan on going the SOL route you can dispute any inaccurate information they have placed on your reports - I'm sure they are reporting inaccurately - they usually do.

If you are using reports that you ordered and paid for through each credit reporting agency (CRA's) (do not use the free FACT-ACT reports) the CRA's would have 30 days to investigate and if the inaccuracies are not corrected (and they usually aren't) the tradelines, by law, MUST be removed.

Though sometimes it is difficult to make the CRA's follow the FCRA and delete if the inaccuracies are not corrected. That's where your papertrail, copies of your letters and proof of mailing comes in. You would file complaints with the BBB, FTC, your states AG and the AG in the collection agencies states - then redispute with the CRA's and include the complaints in with your disputes.

You might click on my profile and do some reading in the links I have listed - to the FDCPA, FCRA, etc. There is also a link where you can find the collecting SOL for your state.
If you are dealing with credit card debts - they are always open accounts.

Answer 2

you can't really do anything. if you are late in your payments, they have a right to sell you to collections. collections charges interest and fees that almost immediately double your debt. you should set up a payment arrangement with the collection agency immediately to avoid further cost.

Answer 3

usually the extra is interest