When the credit card guy come to you regarding collection of payment and offer settlement just look at the sheet which they have with them containing due amount of various customers. There you will be able to see your principle amount, credit limit, over due amount your current bucket and your last payment status. The person who contact you first time are very low level executives which dont have any authority in there hands to do your settlement. After you view your details in that sheet just ask the that guy that you are willing to do settlement. Then he will forward your request to his senior executive and negotiate with the person as low as you can. He will then forward your request to bank for the amount that you are willing to settle. If the bank agrees to it then pay it if not then just ask collection agency for one month time to arrange for funds and when they contact you again then again ask for time until you can arrange for funds.
My bet is to start from 25-30% of your total outstanding. They will agree to about 35-40%. My CITI Bank got settled for 20000 in two installments agaisnt total outstanding of 970000 with principal of 73000.
If you are in 6-7 buckets then you can get very good settlement amount. To delay your bucket period when the collection people comes to you regarding payment give them 500 or so rupees they will never come back and post your status as not found (which is good if you want to settle). Attend every phone call of customer care and insist that you want to settle.
Dont pay anything against your card or take receipts as any amount will move you a bucket up which is not good.
As your bucket period increases your case will be given to agency which has power to write-off or to settle for any amount you are offering.
Cheers
Ashish
