Like - they no longer want the loot? Just how cool is that?
It's very odd. One of them simply gave up as soon as I said I'd contacted a debt settlement company... it was a small balance, so I guess it just wasn't worth it to them. But the other, a credit card I'd had for 12 years, was very persistent. I owed them over $6,000 and they nagged for quite a while.
Then they handed it over to a collections agent, who offered to settle for half. I told them I could do that if they could wait about six weeks. They were very nasty about it and told me they couldn't wait.
I said "You've waited over a year, six more weeks won't kill you."
The guy said "I'm going to have to tell your credit card company you've declined!"
I let him know that I would do it if he'd just wait till I finished settling on the previous account, and he was furious... finally I hung up. I never heard from them again. That was in February.
I'm actually willing to reach settlement; I'm not trying to screw them over -- I figure they made quite a bit on me with that high interest card over all those years, so I don't feel bad about not paying the entire balance, but I didn't expect them to just... go away. But so far it appears that they have.