Hacker News Reader

once something is in collections, you can negotiate to pay a fraction of the original price. it's actually harder to do so before then.

or, you can just not pay even through collections. rarely does it impact credit score (much). lots of kinds of debt even legally can't (eg <$500 medical debt)

View on HN

> you can negotiate to pay a fraction of the original price.

what gives you the negotiating power ? they can simply dock you on your credit report. thats what comcast did to me. they didn't care about negotiating

I think that is how collections work. When a business can't get you to pay they sell the right to collect it to another "collections" business (let's call it Y). Y pays a fraction of the amount owed for the right so even if they can get you to pay like 25%, they are still making a profit.

by that logic i should let every bill go to collections?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com