     P.Rosa (Angryconsumer) | Thursday, December 14, 2000 - 08:08 am 
Several months ago, as I noted in an earlier posting, I received a solicitation from "The Credit Store" in South Dakota that looked like a pre-approved credit card offer but actually was an attempt to get me to reaffirm an old debt. It involved two Citibank credit cards that were charged off in 1990 or 1991 and totalled about $14,000. SOL's had expired on both accounts, there never having been a judgment, and they were off my credit report. The Credit Store offered to give me a Visa card with a credit line equal to the unpaid amounts - plus interest, of course - if I agreed to reaffirm them. Needless to say, the solicitation went into the trash, and I figured that I'd never hear about the old debt again.
Wrong. In yesterday's mail I received another reaffirmation offer concerning the Citibank accounts, this time from Capital One, the debt's new owner. It was a better offer, in a manner of speaking, as I could get a Visa card with a credit line $1,000 greater than the debt amounts. I had one more item for the trash.
Yet thinking about this, a couple of things bother me. There's the whole concept of trying to get people to reaffirm debts that have become legally uncollectable and which have come off credit reports. Yes, there are fine-print disclaimers, but as far as I'm concerned the concept is a very bad one. But there are other things. According to The Credit Store's SEC filings, they buy charged-off credit card accounts for prices ranging from three cents on the dollar all the way down to one-half cent on the dollar. It's a reasonable assumption that post-SOL accounts are at the low end of that scale. It's also safe to say that Capital One paid even less when it bought the accounts from The Credit Store, as one solicitation attempt had failed. Which leads me to believe that Capital One may have paid $50 or less for accounts on which they now want to collect $14,000!
Oh, there's something else. Capital One kept saying that I could rehabilitate my credit by agreeing to their offer. That's quite ridiculous, as (1) accounts are off my credit report, and (2) their idea of rehabilitation is to report the accounts as "Paid by settlement," which IIRC is a severely negative thing.
All in all, I'm quite disappointed that Capital One - which is of course one of the nation's biggest credit card issuers - would have gotten into this dubious business. And I wonder when, if ever, I'll stop getting solicitations about these old accounts! |
