Can I become debt free now!
My name is Steve Bis and I have been working with people that are in arrears with their credit cards for a while now and understand the negative effects it has on their lives. When you have credit card debt and know that this matter is out of control, you should make a decision and make it as soon as possible. You should not put it off until it is too late. As many of you bye now already know is that the debt collectors are not helpful when you speak to them with complaints regarding your statements. It’s extremely remarkable the way it works because when you initially obtain the card they are the politest people while you are on the phone. Then if you contact them to argue against a late or over limit penalty fee and attempt to have it reversed enough to try and keep up with 9.9% or even the 7.9 % interest that they are charging on your accounts. How are you suppose to cover the new payments now? It was dreadful enough to manage before the interest was raised. This is why many U.S. consumers are searching for other options such as credit card debt settlement vs. credit counseling, or bankruptcy. If you are not familiar with any of your options then I will give you a little information on them.
Consumer Bankruptcy
Before 2005 bankruptcy was to be used for consumers who were experiencing severe monetary hardships. Regrettably it was misused by thousands of consumers who were trying to avoid paying their credit card debts. They didn’t want to take responsibility for their misgivings. The credit card industry was sick and tired of this so they lobbied to have the bankruptcy legislation updated. It is now referred to as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection act of 2005. This would make it harder for most consumers to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy. Bankruptcy should only be exercised as your last resort option after you have considered every alternative method. Also you should understand the negative aftereffects that very well might come back later down the road. You would have to hire an attorney, go to court and that could run you a lot of money. There is also the matter of it being on your credit history anywhere from 7 to 10 years. When you sign any significant application or document you by law have to say yes when inquired about your previous bankruptcy, so this does have a extremely long lasting effect on your ability to obtain future credit.
Credit counseling
Everyway you turn, either on TV or the radio, you will hear about debt consolidation credit counseling. A credit counseling company will attempt to get the credit card companies to lower the interest on your credit cards. You then make one monthly payment to the credit counseling company and they then make your payments to each one of your creditors on your behalf. The down fall to this option is even though they lower the interest rate on your credit card balances you very well may still pay back as much as 140% of what you actually owe.
This is because on this sort of agenda you will still be paying back what you owe plus some of the interest for around possibly five years or more. Almost 50% of the consumers that are in credit counseling don’t finish the program for one reason or another. Another draw back to credit counseling is that if you have a cash flow problem and are miss your monthly payment they will boot you out of the program instantly. They will also raise your interest back up and the creditor will not let you back on for a minimum of one year and perhaps even longer. This might put you right back to where you started from, if not in a worse situation.
This is the option which can save you the most amount of money. A competent credit card debt settlement company will save you at least 40% of what you owe. The 40% should include all the fees as well. As with credit counseling, you will hear a lot of radio and television advertisements very frequently. These organizations are starting up all across our beloved country. Some of these companies try to make it appear like they have a magical button and are going to make all your debt vanish overnight.
There are also some companies that try to use religion to aquire the trust of debtors. Whichever company you intend on hiring it is your responsibility to due diligence on them. You should start with the BBB (Better Business bureau). You may be able to discover quite a bit about a company from the BBB. If you discover that a company has only been in operating for a little while and has a plethora of complaints towards them, then you must avoid them. Another thing to look for is how long has the company been in business. Some organizations only make it one or two years before they go out of business or get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Then some of them only stick around to make as much as possible and close down just to open up across the streetevening.
Debt relief will help most American families in times of need
Comments(0)