My account balance with American express has been turned over to a collection agency. Does American express over a reduced payoff as a settlement?

when a company "sells" a bad debt to a collection agency it is at a fraction of the total bill due. So, if you have a bad debt to American Express in the amount of $10,000, more than likely it was sold to the collection agency for 2-3000. The remainder can be written off by American Express on the taxes that are filed by the company. What you can do is contact the collection agency after saving 40% of the debt (or 4000) and offer to negotiate a settlement. If you settle for $4000.00 you are saving $6000 and the collection agency is making 50-100% profit on the bad debt. This what the debt settlement companies do - no sense in paying the settlement company fees when we can negotiate ourselves.