Expert: Creditwrench - 3/1/2010

Question
First of all thank you for any help you might be able to provide. I am in a bit of a pickle with one of my credit card companies and don’t know what road to take.
I have a closed credit card account with Household bank on which I missed two payments, the last one in January, before I received a call from NCB services saying that they are calling to collect on the debt from Household. The lady on the phone told me I needed to make an immediate $433 payment (which was the amount of my minimum payment for February) and then pay a $116 in March, after which I need to pay the total debt of $3,000 that I owe within 6 months. Not knowing enough and not having dealt with this before I agreed to make the $433 payment in February and the subsequent payment of $116 in March, I gave her all my banking information, she said she will call back after that to talk about the next 6 months.
What began to struck me though was that I am still receiving statements, bills and online access to my Household account online with the $433 payment reflected, so I decided to call Household and ask if I could pay my balance online with them instead of NCB, first I thought that would be better for my credit and secondly I will not have to make the $400 payments a month that NCB is asking me to pay. I talk to a number of customer service and collection service representatives from Household and was told that I could continue to pay them instead of NCB because my account is still owed by HSBC, all I needed to do was to call NCB and let them know. My concerns from here are can NCB take legal action against me for not agreeing to their payment plan and paying my bills online through Household? Have I entered into some sort of an agreement with NCB (I only received 2 letters from them both stating what I need to pay for February and that all payments and correspondence should be handled through them)? I also pulled up my annual credit report from the 3 credit bureaus online and the particular account does not come off as charged off it just says 60 days past due and closed by credit guarantor, however it does not show any activity for 2010, in other words it does not show the $433 payment I made in February, why is that?
Thank you so much in advance.

Answer
You have some serious problems. That debt collector will grab the money out of your account with nothing you can do about it. If you can settle with HSBC then do so but before you do anything like that go to the bank and have them close your current account and open a new one. Once you have that done then make your deal with HSBC. Let the debt collector come after you. Not much they can actually do about it. Just make sure you get a receipt for your money from HSBC. A written receipt. Make your payment(s) to HSBC by postal money order and not with a personal check.