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How to Negotiate with Debt Collectors in 2026

Written by Hannah Locklear
Last updated on May 1, 2026

Summary: Negotiating with debt collectors is all about communication. Former debt collection attorney Yale Levy shares that most collectors settle for 70-90% of the original debt amount, while doing nothing could cost you up to 150% with added fees and interest. Solo can help you respond to debt lawsuits properly, and SoloSettle lets you negotiate settlements digitally without stressful phone calls.


Dealing with debt collectors can feel overwhelming, but the truth is, most collectors are just doing their job and are willing to negotiate. In a recent Q&A session, Yale Levy, a former debt collection attorney with 20 years of experience who now works with Solo, shared valuable insights on how to effectively negotiate with collectors.

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Why you should negotiate with debt collectors

You should negotiate with debt collectors because it could help you avoid paying the full debt plus interest, attorney fees, court costs, and post-judgment interest. In other words, negotiating with collectors could help you save thousands of dollars in the long run.

When faced with debt collection, you essentially have two options:

  • Take control by initiating settlement discussions and having input on payment terms
  • Do nothing and let the court process continue, potentially resulting in wage garnishment or bank account levies

Yale explains:

"You could either settle for between 70% and 90% or you could end up paying 150% over time if you do not engage in settlement."

This is because judgments accrue court costs, daily interest, and sometimes attorney's fees, causing your debt to grow significantly over time.

Is it true you should never pay your debts?

This is absolutely false. We live in a credit-based society where obligations matter.

Yale acknowledges that most people fall behind on payments due to life circumstances beyond their control—job loss, illness, divorce, or other financial hardships. But addressing these debts proactively is always better than ignoring them. According to Yale:

"You took out the debt, you used the credit, you rented the apartment, you bought the car. Settling your debts lets you take control again."

There are certain circumstances where it’s probably better not to pay. For example, if someone stole your identity and the debt in question is fraudulent, you should challenge it and avoid paying it at all costs.

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Credit card payment estimated at 24.99% APR over 60 months. Settlement estimate based on industry averages. Actual results vary.

How to negotiate a settlement with a debt collector

The key to successful negotiation is communication. Here are your options:

  1. Use SoloSettle to initiate settlement discussions digitally (no phone calls or waiting on hold)
  2. Call the collector yourself to negotiate directly
  3. Hire an attorney to represent you (though this can be expensive)
  4. Seek legal aid (though services are often limited due to high demand)

"The sooner you communicate with the collectors that are trying to collect debts from you, the better. The longer you let it wait, the worse it's going to get."

What happens when you settle a debt?

When you settle a debt for less than the full amount:

  • The creditor should update your credit report to show the account as "settled"
  • You may receive a 1099-C tax form for the forgiven amount (for settlements with more than $600 forgiven)
  • This forgiven debt is considered taxable income by the IRS

Let's consider an example.

Example: Maria received a lawsuit for a $15,000 credit card debt. She used Solo to file her Answer within the deadline, then used SoloSettle to offer 60% ($9,000) to resolve the debt. After some negotiation, the collector accepted $10,500 (70%). Maria avoided a judgment and saved $4,500, plus potential court costs and interest that would have accrued if she had ignored the lawsuit.

What if you're sued in the wrong state?

If you're sued for debt in a state where you don't reside, you should file a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction rather than answering the complaint. Debt collectors typically must sue you in the state where you currently live, not where you opened the account.

Responding to a debt collection lawsuit doesn't mean you can't negotiate. In fact, filing a proper Answer with Solo creates the perfect opportunity to reach a settlement that works for your financial situation.

Transcript

George (00:03):

You open a mailbox and there it is, a debt collection letter. Suddenly your heart sinks. What do you do next? This is the Debt Hotline hosted by Team Solo. Whether you're here for crazy, real life debt stories or tips on resolving your debts for good, you've come to the right place. I'm George, founder and CEO of Solo, the trusted platform that's helped hundreds of thousands of people respond to debt lawsuits and resolve debt. Join us weekly to hear from debt experts, debt collectors and debt survivors. No shame, no judgment to straight answers, and a fresh start. Today we've got a very special guest, my friend Yale Levy. We're going to be talking about how to negotiate with debt collectors. Yale, can you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yale (00:44):

Yeah, thanks George. Good afternoon or good evening everybody. It's 7 0 1 here Eastern Standard Time. I am in Naples, Florida this week. So you're doing this from a remote location. My name against Yale Levy, I was a debt collector. I owned a law firm that was based in Columbus, Ohio. We practiced in multiple states including Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. I practiced debt collection law for about 20 years. I retired the end of 2023 and was hired by George back in September of 2024 and have been on this crazy rollercoaster since then. And I'm here to help answer your questions about negotiating with debt collectors.

George (01:31):

Fantastic. Okay, this is great, folks. You're lucky to be on here tonight. There is no one who's more expert on debt collection than Yale had very much firsthand experience and he knows how all of this works. Yale, a common myth in this arena is that all debt collectors are bad people. Is that true or can you bust that for us?

Yale (01:56):

Yeah, just to bust that, that is not true. Collectors are just doing their jobs and we are at solo building relationships with these collectors to make it a little bit easier for consumers to interact and interface with 'em. The best outcome is always a settlement. The legal process is time consuming and difficult. Even for lawyers. We have a court involved, so you have options. Your options are try to settle and take control of your debt by getting a settlement that you have some input on. Or alternatively, like unfortunately, many, many, many people who could stick your head in the sand, do nothing that the court process grind on and have a judgment taken against you and then have post-judgment activities commence once they find where you work or where your bank at, which becomes involuntary collections and then they take the money from you instead of you agreeing to how much you can pay every month.

So again, you have two options. Take control of the situation by reaching out to your collector who's just doing their job. They have no ax to grind, they have no bad will against you. They'll pay to do a job and you could settle with them and control to some degree when the payments come out and how much they are. Or you could let the court system do its job, which is to be a neutral arbitrator, but if you don't appear, that means the other side who does appear says, gives the judge and the court their point of view and they typically get a judgment for what they asked for. Once a judgment is obtained, your court costs that get accrued, you get interest that accrues every day. Typically, some states even allow attorney fees and your debt is just going to grow and grow and grow as more activity happens, which could cause you debt in two to five years to almost go up by 50%.

So you could either settle for between 70 and 90% or you could end up paying 150% over time if you do not engage in settlement and solo settle, that's what I work for, is a great platform to use. It allows consumers to initiate settlement discussions with their collectors, law firms, collection agencies, debt buyers, the whole kit and caboodle, and it allows you to do all that digitally. So you never have to wait on hold, you never have to play phone tag. You can do it all on your computer, on your phone, sitting on your couch, watching TV in your living room. So those are the options available to you. You can either call this, you can do three things. You can call an attorney, try to hire an attorney to represent you, which is expensive typically because they charged by the hour. You could try to settle yourself by calling the connection agency or law firm and trying to get somebody on the phone to settle, which happens all the time, every day. Or you can use solo settle or you can try legal aid, but unfortunately, legal aid, understaffed and there's so many people trying to get into legal aid that's very, very hard to try to get their attention on debt collection cases.

George (05:18):

So Yale, another myth that we hear from time to time is that you should never, ever, ever pay your debts. What do you think? True or false?

Yale (05:28):

False. I don't know who would ever want to do that again. You took out the debt, you used the credit, you rented the apartment, you bought the car, something happened. Usually what happens to people, and I've done this for 20 years so I know some change of circumstance. You're going down life as always, and everything is fine. You're paying your bills, you're getting everything you responsible and then something happens. Lose your job, get sick, get divorced, get separated. Death in the family illness, some change of circumstance happens where you can't control and all of a sudden your financial life turns upside down and now you are in a corner and you don't know what to do. So many people go through that every single day. It's very sad and some people have family and friends that could help them out of a jam, but many, many people don't.

So settling your debts will lets you take control again and helps you take care of that. So it is the American way that we live on credit. We all do it, I do it. I'm sure George does it, and many, many of you live on credit or buy things or rent things or lease a vehicle and those things are obligations. We live in a credit based society, so the way credit based society works is they give you the money today, but you have to promise to pay it back tomorrow. And if you don't do that, there are repercussions,

George (07:03):

Right? That's for sure. So how does somebody negotiate a debt settlement with a law firm?

Yale (07:11):

Well, you negotiate number one, negotiation is basically another word for communication. So you need to communicate with your collector. If you don't communicate with them, they're not going to be able to help you settle your debt or resolve your debt. If you have a fraud claim or identity theft claim or a good defense, you need to somehow get that over to the collector so that they know that you have an issue. Was it fraud? Was it not yours? Did your mom open up one of your credit card and use it without your permission? Was it enable? There's so many different possibilities there. So communication, communication, communication. And again, you got three ways, you got multiple ways to do it. There's more than three of course, multiple ways to do it. You could use solo settle, you could do it yourself. You could hire an attorney, you could try legal aid. You go to court and talk to the judge about what's going on. All these things take time and effort and it all starts with communication. The sooner you communicate with your creditors, your collectors that are trying to collect debts from you, the better. The longer you let it wait, the worse it's going to get.

George (08:24):

We've got some questions from the audience here, folks. We have a lot of people on the show tonight, so if you have any questions, let's go ahead and put 'em into the chat. We'll do our best to get to them. Got a question from Frank. My credit card debt or my credit card account has been garnished and they take my social security check after it has been deposited into my checkings account. Most of this is debt for credit card debts.

Yale (08:51):

So just to let you know before I start, while I am a lawyer, I cannot give anyone on this zoom call and legal advice. I could only talk in hypothetical because I'm probably not licensed in the state that you reside in and we do not have an attorney-client relationship. So hypothetically, if someone was garnishing my mother's social security check, that's it. Bank account, you need to contact the court and file something letting them know that social security is an exempt asset and cannot be garnished. Now sometimes the court requires something called tracing. Well, if you put other money in that bank account, they would determine what percent or portion of that bank account is exempt funds, IE, social security, and what ones are non-exempt funds such as wages, interest, dividends, et cetera. So yes, social security typically is exempt from attachment in most states.

George (09:49):

Wayne has a question. He's saying, I used a financial debt relief program. I paid off several accounts before I quit. Those accounts are still showing a balance. What do I do now?

Yale (10:02):

Well, hypothetically if those accounts are, so I'm assuming you said there were settled in four by the debt settlement company. Did Wayne respond to that? Did he say Yes?

George (10:11):

Wayne, if you're on the chat still, I'd love for you to pitch in here and just send this little message

Yale (10:17):

I would say that the debt settlement company should have provided you with some proof that you had settled those accounts with those creditors. You should send that hypothetically. You should send that information to the credit bureaus that are reporting the debt as still open, letting them know that the accounts have been settled and that the creditor debt by our client has not yet updated their credit report. That should be a fixable thing. All the credit bureaus have ways for you to engage with them electronically online via the web, and you can upload that information that you have from the debt seven companies and provide that to them and they'll note the files as closed, probably settled for less than four value.

George (11:08):

Can you tell us a little bit about how the credit reporting works? I think people have a general misconception that credit reporting is pretty standardized or centralized, but can you tell us a little bit about that? How could that happen where the debt settlement firm this person worked with, paid off these debts, but then on his credit report they still show a balance?

Yale (11:30):

How does that work? Again, it depends. With every situation's a little bit different, but in a generality, creditors, banks, furniture companies, anybody that you have credit with voluntarily reports back to the credit bureaus, updates to your credit file. So all of us have unique credit with the big three or big four credit reporting agencies and that it is the creditor's responsibility to keep that updated and current as you make payments or missed payments or settle accounts or payoff accounts, those creditors are supposed to be radioing back to the credit reporting agencies. They're called CRAs in short form that what is happening on their account.

George (12:22):

So this is voluntary, it's not required. Right.

Yale (12:26):

I don't know enough to make that statement. I believe once you start doing it, it might be required. I'm not positive

George (12:37):

As a debt collector, were you reporting to the bureau as a debt collection law firm?

Yale (12:42):

No, we did not report. We had our clients were reporting, so we were just a middleman. We were just a extension of that creditor.

George (12:50):

Your clients would report sometimes

Yale (12:52):

I see probably all the time,

George (12:54):

But the law firm, so let's say a consumer would satisfy a debt with your law firm. How would that get reported back to the bureau?

Yale (13:06):

So we would settle a debt with the consumer. The consumer would then settle it for a lump sum or payments over time, once the debt was satisfied, either payment in fall or settled in fall, we would echo that back to our credit or client, our client and the client would then take that information and echo it back to the credit reporting agencies, the CRAs, and that's how the credit reports get updated is from information that we provided to our clients and our clients then send it to the credit reporting agencies.

George (13:39):

So a few players in between the consumer paying off the debt and not getting reported to the bureaus.

Yale (13:48):

And I believe I've never really worked at a collection agency, but I do believe that some collection agencies actually do report as well. So sometimes your debt can be reported twice, once by the collection agency and once again by the creditor that has owed the debt.

George (14:07):

So when a debt is settled, the savings is generally supposed to be reported to the IRS as income?

Yale (14:16):

Correct. It's called a 10 99 C and it is an obligation of anybody that has settled and more than $600 of debt has been forgiven. It is a federal IRS requirement that a 10 99 CB issued to the consumer so that they could include it on their tax return and that is sometimes a whammy. So if you settle a $30,000 debt for $20,000 over time, when that finally is consummated and settled in full, you could receive a $10,000 10 99, which is income to you, which you have to pay tax on at your tax rate depending at the graduated scale. Some people pay a lower tax rate, some people pay a higher tax rate based on their ban they're in for the taxes.

George (15:09):

And who is responsible for sending that to the IRS? Is that the debt collection law firm or is that the clients or the plaintiffs?

Yale (15:15):

Yeah, it's always the clients. So the creditors this time of the year start sending out 10 99 Cs to all of the people that settled debts in the previous year in 2024 so that they could include that income on their tax returns.

George (15:31):

Right. So the creditor will send that to the consumer as well as to the IRS,

Yale (15:35):

So the iOS knows about it.

George (15:36):

Great. Thanks for clarifying all of that. We got a question from the rayon. It occurred to me that they may have sent something. Let's see, I'm jumping in the middle. She has a few messages here. Let's see. Hi, I'm using solo suit. I sent an answer in response to being served papers from Capital One indicating they're suiting. The date I sent my answer was November 23rd, 2024. I haven't heard back from their law firm. It occurred to me that Capital One may have sent something to my physical address, not my mailing address. My mailing address is clearly stated in my answer documents. My question is this, how much time do they have to respond to my answer and what if they sent something to my wrong address and I didn't receive it? What happens in that case? I live in New Mexico in a rural area where there's no mail service. My mailing address is a PO box five miles from my home. The legal papers I was served were delivered by a sheriff to my physical address.

Yale (16:33):

Wow, that's a lot of questions, so let's try to take them one at a time. If you have not received anything. Well after the answer is filed, sometimes some courts, again, every state is different, so we're going to talk in generalities. We can't talk in specifics here. Some courts do set a scheduling calendar or a scheduling order and has deadlines for when things have to be done. Some states don't. They just wait to a trial date. If I filed an answer and haven't received anything and think maybe the plaintiff sent me something, I would probably call the court and ask if anything has been filed since your answer and you could call the clerk of court's office, give them your case number and they'll be able to look it up in their files. Some states are online like where I'm at in Ohio. We have an online system.

Many states now do have online systems and public access so that you could easily go online, see your case and see what's been filed. In your case, if something has been filed, I would suggest you download it immediately and look at it or go to the court so you can see it. And if you have missed a response, I would suggest that you filed a notice or motion with the court explaining that you never received what was sent to you and therefore you were never able to respond to it. Maybe even attaching an affidavit of fact saying this is I'm this person, I never received this document and have it notarized. Sign in and have it notarized to explain the situation and hopefully the court will give you a second bite of the apple. Typically they will. Some courts don't because they're very draconian, but that would be my game plan if I missed something because I never received it in the mail.

George (18:29):

So basically you'd call the court and try to figure out what's going on

Yale (18:34):

If something's happened. Now, if nothing's been filed, it's just a waiting game. Again, what I always suggest to do as the theme of this topic is this webinar is going to be is called communication. If they filed suit against you on the second or third page of the lawsuit should be a signature block with who signed the complaint and a phone number to call them. I would probably call them and say, Hey, would you like to settle? I would like to settle or better yet, use solo settle. That way you don't have to talk to somebody. You could do it all digitally on the computer and see if you get Capital One to reach out to you and respond to your settlement offer. It's very easy to do. It's about five screens of information and then you pop in your offer and then resend it off to the attorney for you and we'll see what they say. Some of them respond, sometimes they don't respond, but you can do it yourself. You can pick up the phone and call yourself. That's always an option. You could try to hire an attorney, go to legal aid. Unfortunately you can't have a friend and help you because that would be accessing law without a license. They won't talk to somebody that's not an attorney on your behalf.

George (19:45):

That sounds great. I got a question from Savage. If a defendant was summoned in Indiana Court and responded to it in the spring of 2024, but the defendant moved to Illinois in October, 2024, motion for summary judgment was filed in January, 2025. What happens next?

Yale (20:04):

Boy, oh boy. Well, since you got, well, hypothetically if it was me, since I cannot provide you legal advice if I was served in Indiana, the court now has jurisdiction over you in Indiana, over me in Indiana, I would respond to the motion for semi judgment. The best you can. It's probably a lot of legal jargon. I don't know if you really owe the money or not, but assuming you do owe the money, I would probably see the clock ticking and call the attorney that filed the motion for semi judgment, try to settle or go on to solo settle, fill out those five screens of information and try to digitally settle your account with that attorney. Again, it's a communication game. Sticking your head in the sand and doing nothing is not going to help you. Moving out of state does not make a difference if you are property served in Indiana at the time you're living there, the court has jurisdiction over you and you are responsive for making a response to that summary judgment, motion.

George (21:06):

Motion. That's great. And folks, so settle does work well. We're getting lots of success stories. Just today we had somebody settled around a $50,000 debt lawsuit for about $25,000. So a huge win that deleted nearly $25,000 in just a little while using So settle. So you can make an offer on solo settle. Hopefully you can get a similar deal. Got a question from Tay Smith If the attorney did not show up during pretrial hearing, what are the next steps? And she is in

Yale (21:37):

Florida, well in what state? Florida.

George (21:39):

She's down the street from you in

Yale (21:40):

Florida. Yeah. So hypothetically Katie, right?

Hypothetically, what maybe you should have done was at that pretrial conference, ask the court to dismiss your case since the defendant failed. Since the plaintiff's attorney failed to show at the pretrial and you were there. It might not be too late. Maybe you file maybe one option, possibly hypothetically would be for you to file a motion to have the case dismissed for failure for the plaintiff's attorney to show at the pretrial hearing. Again, that might work. That probably won't work. What I would do again, and then this is a very common theme in this webcast, is negotiate by communicating with the attorney. Either by picking up the phone, sending an email or using solo settle to reach out to them and make an offer to settle the case depending if you owe the money or not. I'm assuming you do, but I haven't talked to you. So I don't know. But again, start low. I wouldn't say 10% is probably too low. I would start at maybe 50 or 60% and try to get to a middle ground. The Tony has already upped the poker because they've sued you. This is serious. If you don't respond to these legal actions, a judgment will be taken against you and then instead of you being in control, the plaintiff or the lawyer becomes in control and would take the money from you if they could find it. So that is a theme of tonight's webinar communication.

George (23:20):

Great, love it. So let's say TE got the case dismissed. What would happen then? Is she off the hook for the debt?

Yale (23:26):

Well, usually the court would just dismiss it without prejudice and without prejudice means that they do have the right to refile the case. Now you could ask that the case be dismissed with prejudice since you probably took off work. Eight to go to court and say, Hey, I took off work. They didn't show up. Will you please dismiss this case with prejudice? If it is dismissed with prejudice, the case cannot be refiled again,

George (23:53):

But they could still try to collect from you outside of court.

Yale (23:55):

Yeah, that's phone calls and letters, George. So put 'em in the trash can.

George (24:02):

Well, I think what we're saying is settlement is like the ultimate resolution, right? For the debt. If you owe the debt settlement's the ultimate resolution for

Yale (24:09):

You, correct. Again, but what George has said is very accurate. If you owe the debt, settlement is the best alternative. If you don't owe the debt, you need to stand up, raise your hand and tell them why you don't owe the debt and keep banging that drum so that people understand that hey, this is fraud, this is identity theft. You have the wrong person. There's so many options out there that it might not be yours. Unfortunately, for everybody on this webinar, 90% of the people truly do owe the debt. Maybe 95% of the people truly owe the debt. Collectors are just trying to do their job, trying to recover money for their clients, which is a legal thing to do, and they try calling. They try sending letters. People don't respond. Leaving them the only alternative, which is to file an lawsuit against them. Right.

George (25:00):

We've got a good question here from Jean basically saying, if you have been served, if you've been served in the wrong state, once you file an answer, you're accepting jurisdiction in that court. If you appealer by filing an answer and they win a judgment and they take that judgment domesticated here in Texas, they can try to collect on your properties. Kind of summarizing the question here from Gene, sounds like he's saying he's just noting that if you file an answer and don't contend venue, then you might end up sued in the wrong state, essentially.

Yale (25:35):

Correct. If you are sued in the wrong state, if you don't live in the state that's being used to, so if you live in Texas and they sue you in Oklahoma, you should probably, hypothetically, you should probably do a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction because an Oklahoma case doesn't have any jurisdiction in Texas. They have to sue you where you reside.

George (25:58):

How does a collector usually determine which state the lawsuit should be brought in?

Yale (26:03):

They usually try to validate the consumer's address and they sue the consumer. In the state where they reside,

George (26:11):

Is it the state they currently reside or is it the state where they opened up the debt account?

Yale (26:16):

No, it's the state in most states. I can't talk about every state, but in most states, in my opinion, hypothetically, they can file a suit in the state where you reside. That's what we did. We always file a suit in the state where the consumer resides. Somebody could take out a debt in Michigan and then move to Ohio and then we would file suit against them in Ohio. So where the debt accrued is meaningless, will you reside is the most important indication for jurisdiction. We did some landlord tenant stuff and it was all over the country and people moved to Ohio from Colorado or Texas or Florida and came to Ohio with landlord tenant expenses that we sued for. So that happens all the time.

George (27:01):

Great. Alright folks. Well that is the end of the show. We're half past the hour. Thanks so much for showing up everybody. Hope we could get to your questions. If not, hopefully the wonderful Hannah on the chat as Solo responded to your questions in the chat. Not good and take a look. So glad to have everybody on here. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. Until next time, folks.

Yale (27:22):

Yeah, thanks George. Thanks for having me. Thanks everybody for participating. Hope it was helpful.

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Forgot to respond to your debt lawsuit? The judge may have ordered a default judgment against you, and with a default judgment, debt collectors can garnish your wages. Here are our guides on how to stop wage garnishment in your state, plus other wage garnishment resources.

The Debt Hotline

Hosted by Team Solo, The Debt Hotline breaks down debt and personal finance topics with help from attorneys, financial experts, and industry pros. We respond to real questions to help you navigate debt with knowledge and courage.

Other debt resources