What happens after the creditor receives my Hardship Letter?

You’ve mailed all of your Original Creditors a Hardship Letter.  You even have the return receipts from sending the letter by certified mail showing each creditor has received the letter.  Now what?

Once your original creditors have received your Hardship Letter, it will be reviewed by the collector and/or department handling your account.  Your specific hardship will likely be noted in your file for future reference. (which is another reason you may not want to include too much detail about your specific Hardship at this stage– see How much detail should I include in ‘My Story’.

Some creditors will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your letter, while others will not.  If you have included call control language requesting that a creditor only call you during certain hours of the day or not to call you at certain times, the creditor may also list this information in your file.  While some Original Creditors will honor your call control requests, they are not required to do so.  For more information about this topic, read: Why won’t the creditors stop calling me after I send a Hardship Letter?

Overall, there is not much that typically happens after the creditor has received a Hardship Letter – and that is perfectly normal.  The goal of the Hardship Letter is to keep the communication open with your creditor to show good faith on your part.  At this stage, there is not much more you need to do.  Keep saving your money for settlements, watch for collection letters in the mail (always update this in UGotiate as soon as possible) and keep your head up!  Once you have some funds saved up in your Contribution Account, UGotiate will suggest possible negotiation opportunities.