LostMotion

And good luck.

By the way I lend money to corporations so I know a little about the mindset and process. You really just have to hammer away at them.

radcliffe1

A bummer dude.
I like the call the CC companies idea and asking for a lower rate. I'm not sure I'd tell them you're in over your head cause then they need not work with you.
If they think you have been offered a better rate and are going to transfer to another card company they will likely work with you.
Letting your cards go late will haunt you for 7 years my friend - no if's, and's or but's.
After you lower your rate call them all back if you have to negotiate a payment plan.
Clearly you need to reduce your expenses and use every extra dime to pay down your debt.
You want to avoid the 7 year h_ll that will screw you up.
If you can't then bite the bullet and use Carrera4's plan.You can do it all yourself. Good luck and learn from this.

beb

Okay, I know alot of people are telling you to call your credit card company to negotiate BUT DONT!!!!!!!!!!!

It may have worked in the past, but not right now. If you call and inquire about lowering your interest they will just close your acct. That means you will be stuck at the same high interest and your credit score will fall from having an acct closed.

I called BofA to do this and they said they would look into it....... I had no late payments, always made more than minimum payments and the next thing I know I received a letter saying that due to my call it seems as though I shouldnt use the card anymore (havent used card in almost a year at this point) and they closed it.

lol. It sucked. But thankfully I called again a couple weeks ago and they reopened it due to good credit and history of payments.

If you are in debt and feel that you really just cannot get out of it on your own, use the debt consolidation. Ive gotten consultations with a handful of companies and there are tons who will do it for free. It DOES hurt your credit quite a bit and take what jlammy says into consideration! But if this is really your last resort than do it, it does make things alot easier in the short run.

I myself, opted not to do it in the end since I couldnt risk my score dropping... You should see if anyone will give you a personal loan so you can consolidate yourself and if not, get a new card with 0% interest on balance transfers for at least a year. Ive gotten 2 new cards to do that with and ended up paying off 2, almost 3 cards now... Try Discover, they gave me 1 yr no interest and a decent credit line.

minboost

The changed law is based on a fitness test. If you make under a certain amount (it's $40-something thousand) than you don't even have to take the fitness test.

I think this is based on the average of your past 3 years of tax returns.

I don't know for certain, but it's something like that.

If you make over $40k a year, you should be able to pay off $20k in debt without going into bankruptcy. I think the old rule was if you owe more than you make in a year, you should file bk.

Ofcourse there are alot of other factors.

Then again, you own a 2002 S2000, probably worth $15000. You can buy a reliablecar for $2000. There's over half your debt right there. The only downside is, you won't be cool like us anymore

xdavieexx

I agree, sell your car then when you get back on your feet you can always buy another one.

ricepatrol78

sell your s2000 and apply that money towards the balance.

Sorry that was posted earlier.

S2PIDSTYLE

Hold on folks.....im not poor. I make decent money, i just have alot of unsecured debt at high interest rates. I was hoping this could be a legit way to not mess up my credit while getting all my bills lumped together into a payment that would be going toward principle rather than interest. I can afford to pay all my bills now, it just sucks to see the money go toward interest and barely pay down the principle.

I have never thought of BK, i just saw a friend of mine do this program and it A) lowered his monthly payments and
B) put more toward principle to get his debt paid faster.

Thanks for all the concern, but if i choose not to go through this program, I wont default on any payments at all, i will just continue paying off my low balance cards and then go to the higher balance ones with the extra money once the lower ones are paid.

Maybe I just looked at this as F the CC companies thing instead of what alot of people use it for and thats to stop the bleeding.

tantheman

If you have good credit and paid off your balance before the interest can accrue on those credit cards and your history is good with the credit card companies, they will do anything to not have you cancel your credit card.

I have had a 3.9% or 0% on one of my cards for the last two years. I have been with this card company for over 5 years.

Tan

S2PIDSTYLE

I have never been late on any of my cards. Just interest rates are between 12.99 and 23.99 depending on card. Maybe ill just try and call and get better rates

LostMotion

If that is the situation then you should try to get balance transfer offers, etc. They won't lower your interest rate unless they think you will file and they won't get a good recovery. If anything you want to play it the other way and close the high interest cards, they may then come back and say oh we'll give you 0% for 6 months or something like that.