Hi! I'm a Canadian who incurred about $20,000 in hospital fees in the US a couple years ago. I purchased emergency travel insurance before leaving but my insurance company denied I told them I was asthmatic when getting the policy and refused to pay my bill. Although I did tell them, it's proving to be a "my word against theirs" situation. Do you know if I am safe to cross the border back into the US with this debt still active?

Read up on the articles in my debt learning centre. You will find tons of useful info there.

Re: Not knowing how to negotiate settlements properly. I would encourage you to hire a good debt settlement company to do the work for you. Even with the cost associated with hiring a firm you will still pay considerably less then what you owe, and it will get done right for you.

As many on this board have discovered the hard way, its not as easy as you think once you start diving into it.

Good luck.

Thanks so much for the information Richard. So it appears it can only be taken by the bank that is the same bank the credit was with.

As far as do I know what I am doing in trying to do a settlement negotiation? Um not really, never gotten myself in a mess like this before but reading anything and everything I possibly can at the moment :)

It's called a right of offset, you can read about how and why here: http://www.totaldebtfreedom.ca/articles/article_7.htm

Hi, thanks for the quick response.

However, I think "enforcing" is not the "least of my worries" but a very pressing one since I've seen them scoop money out of my Canadian bank account and thus if they are able to do that to my U.S. account, I would be unable to have any funds for basic living needs. I think that it is my initial focus while trying to look at my finances and figure out something to actually take care of the debt. I highly doubt at this point I could come up with 50% of the lump sum although I could come up with part of one. As well, if they were able to take the money out, I would have nothing towards a lump sump to bargain with.

Also, how were they able to take the money out of my Canadian account?

I guess the glimmer of good in this is that I have/am learning a very valuable lesson while still fairly young about using credit wisely in the future!!!

The amount you offer depends on your financial situation. In most cases budget about 50% of what you owe, if you can negotiate a lower amount then what you budgeted for, thats great too.

Don't worry about them "enforcing" anything, thats the least of your issues.

Negotiating a settlement the right way is by far more important. Do you know what you are doing there and can you come up with a lump sum?

Hi...hoping to find some glimmer of piece of mind. Totally stressed out here. I am a student who lives in Alberta but currently doing a school year in the U.S. Was unable to keep up with my CIBC/Amex payments in Canada. On top of that mess, I am not getting my mail forwarded from my step father (whole other big yucky issue) so have no idea what has been going on, assuming collections because now anytime money goes into my chequing account in Canada someone called IBB is taking it out.

So a few things here....I owe on one 6,000 and the other 4,000 what would be an amount that I could offer to them for debt settlement? I am existing on my financial aid and was thinking with the right amount I could possibly scrape it all together and still be able to eat :) Second of all can they enforce this debt in the U.S. like they are in Canada and wipe out take my financial aid monies here in the U.S.?