Patent ID: 8407138

Claim:
An apparatus for resolving a debt transaction, the debt transaction representing an amount of money owed by a debtor to a creditor, the apparatus comprising: a server arrangement comprising: means for contacting the debtor by transmitting a communication to the debtor using one of a number of available communication channels, wherein the communication invites the debtor to contact the server arrangement for the purpose of attempting to resolve the debt transaction; a credit information seeking module configured to obtain debtor debt account information from a financial information source other than the server arrangement and the debtor in response to the debtor contacting the server arrangement; a rules based decision module configured to employ only extracted data identified as pertinent from obtained debtor debt account information, the extracted data extracted in accordance with rules established by the creditor available to the rules based decision module, and analyze the extracted data in order to determine a potential resolution strategy for the debt transaction comprising a plurality of individualized transaction settlement offers based on creditworthiness of the debtor, wherein credit worthiness of the debtor comprises a calculated ability for the debtor to repay at least a portion of the debt transaction based on the extracted data identified as pertinent; and a memory configured to maintain information related to the debt transaction and the rules employed by the rules based decision module; wherein the server arrangement is configured to provide the debtor with the plurality of individualized transaction settlement offers, and the server arrangement is further configured to attempt to obtain agreement from the debtor to settle the debt transaction based on the plurality of individualized transaction settlement offers and process at least a portion of a payment by the debtor in settlement of the debt transaction.