Quote Originally Posted by Elhuero View Post
if you settle, it's not paid in FULL it's paid as AGREED. You're basically making a deal. You agree to pay them some of what you owe and they agree to accept it and quit bugging you.

Lets say you owe 10k on a credit card. You are way past due and accept a 40% settlement. They're not going to take 4k and say you paid ten, your credit will show that you took a deal.

Your credit will not be "clear", but it will be a damn sight better than having a charge off or worse yet a bankruptcy. You won't have to pay more.

But down the road if you want to buy a house, the mortgage lender may require your credit to be "clear", which would mean you'd have to take care of those settlements.
Understood, but what exactly does (red) mean? i.e. I paid the 40% based on the 10K, so now I need to contact the original credit card (or collection agency) company and tell them I want to pay the other 605?