would you look into one of those debt settlement programs if you were me?

[Boid Fink]

Try calling Capital One their rates are more competitive than BoA in most cases.

I love Capital One.

[Swolf]

IF you have any questions about credit go here:

http://www.creditinfocenter.com/

http://www.debt-consolidation-credit-repair-service.com/forums/

What every you do don't every pay anything till you read this site. I have improved my credit rating by over 200 points by doing what is stated here and on thier message boards. I have not paid any creditors and have had them removed from my credit report. It is not a "quick fix" and does take a couple of months to do, but if I can do it anyone can. When I found this site I was @ 400 credit score due to old medical bills and a nasty divorce. I am now at over a 600 and on the way up still. Spend hours on that site learning everything I could and closed on a house last month, after 2 years of saving money.

[Swolf]

You can do whatever they can a not pay. PM me for more info if needed

[spartan]

Call me a turd, but avoiding the debt is sidetracking your responsibility. Particularly as this is simply avoiding the issue, you haven't stated that you are incapable of paying it, others are just suggesting you don't. That is not honest. As the expression goes, you made your bed....

When I got married I brought in some cc debt and my wife brought in some more. We simply tightened our belts, and paid it off. It took us about 2 years I think. Now we have no cc debt and haven't had more than about a grand/grand and a half for about the last 6-7 years.

With regards to the 18% loan, it is worth it if it is the best you can get and LOWER than your cc interest, otherwise the answer is no.

Oh, one thing we did do is shop around for very low and 0% introductory offers that allow balance transfers. With little to no interest it is amazing how many lumps you are able to know off the debt. We bounced around a few of those. Read the mouse print though, make sure there are no time limits or penalties if you pay it all off over a given period of time.

[gruber]

Skull & bones,]

 Â Settling will hurt your credit, from what I read almost as badly as a bankruptcy. I would try and get a personal loan to pay it off. If not start with the smallest bills paying them off and then work on the big ones. There is unfortunatly no easy way. Most of America including myself has fallin victim to the cc.

I think Ladyfan was in finace you may want to pm her.

Swolf,
 Â Did you repair your credit your self or pay someone? My buddy just spent $600 for someone to do his though I think its a scam. Its unfortunate that someone could have a bad couple months and kill their credit in those few months and yet it takes years to repair.

[Skull and Bones]

Call me a turd, but avoiding the debt is sidetracking your responsibility. Particularly as this is simply avoiding the issue, you haven't stated that you are incapable of paying it, others are just suggesting you don't. That is not honest. As the expression goes, you made your bed....

When I got married I brought in some cc debt and my wife brought in some more. We simply tightened our belts, and paid it off. It took us about 2 years I think. Now we have no cc debt and haven't had more than about a grand/grand and a half for about the last 6-7 years.

With regards to the 18% loan, it is worth it if it is the best you can get and LOWER than your cc interest, otherwise the answer is no.

Oh, one thing we did do is shop around for very low and 0% introductory offers that allow balance transfers. With little to no interest it is amazing how many lumps you are able to know off the debt. We bounced around a few of those. Read the mouse print though, make sure there are no time limits or penalties if you pay it all off over a given period of time.

I never said I was trying to avoid my debt or that I was incapable of paying it off.  But having unplanned twins in Feb. kind of forced us to buy a bigger house and we now have to pay $400 a week in child care.  Our budget is a lot tighter now.  I just want to come up with the best plan to pay it off.  Currently we have been playing the cc transfer game to get low interest rates but opening more cc accounts is the last thing I want to do.  In my mind a debt consolidation loan with a definitive finish line is what I'd prefer to do. At the same time I'd like to lower the amount we have to pay each month and pay extra when we can.  I also plan to cancel all our cc accounts at that time as well. My wife brought up the settlement option and I just wanted an opinion on it.

SWOLF, thanks for the link.  I'll definitely check it out.

[The White Tiger]

Settling with the CC's will hurt your credit but you probably should ask for how long. It should not be near bankruptcy but I bet it is. Bankruptcy

I think repaying is a good plan - you have already learned - you just get to pay off the dead horse you bought...

[spartan]

Call me a turd, but avoiding the debt is sidetracking your responsibility. Particularly as this is simply avoiding the issue, you haven't stated that you are incapable of paying it, others are just suggesting you don't. That is not honest. As the expression goes, you made your bed....

When I got married I brought in some cc debt and my wife brought in some more. We simply tightened our belts, and paid it off. It took us about 2 years I think. Now we have no cc debt and haven't had more than about a grand/grand and a half for about the last 6-7 years.

With regards to the 18% loan, it is worth it if it is the best you can get and LOWER than your cc interest, otherwise the answer is no.

Oh, one thing we did do is shop around for very low and 0% introductory offers that allow balance transfers. With little to no interest it is amazing how many lumps you are able to know off the debt. We bounced around a few of those. Read the mouse print though, make sure there are no time limits or penalties if you pay it all off over a given period of time.

I never said I was trying to avoid my debt or that I was incapable of paying it off.  But having unplanned twins in Feb. kind of forced us to buy a bigger house and we now have to pay $400 a week in child care.  Our budget is a lot tighter now.  I just want to come up with the best plan to pay it off.  Currently we have been playing the cc transfer game to get low interest rates but opening more cc accounts is the last thing I want to do.  In my mind a debt consolidation loan with a definitive finish line is what I'd prefer to do. At the same time I'd like to lower the amount we have to pay each month and pay extra when we can.  I also plan to cancel all our cc accounts at that time as well. My wife brought up the settlement option and I just wanted an opinion on it.

SWOLF, thanks for the link.  I'll definitely check it out.

That is why I said OTHERS  were suggesting you avoid paying it off rather than suggestions how to deal with it.

FWIW cancelling all your CC's also creates a big hit on your credit score. You would be better off cancelling them over a period of time. I think that one every 6 months is the recommendation. Might be wise to verify that.
Regardless of how much CC debt you have I would also suggest you keep at least 1 in case of emergencies. If, for example, the car breaks down and you don't have enough cash to pay for it you might not be able to get to work and that would rather compound the issue by getting fired!!!!

[Swolf]

Gruber,

Anything those guys you can do and alot cheeper. If you go to those links it tells you step by step how to repair your credit. I also learned how to remove all my equifax inquries in 24 hrs. It takes time, as in each round takes 30 days to deal with. Alot of those companies are scams, but the legit ones do the same thing you can do, the only cost is the CMRRR {Certified mail Return Reciept Requested}. It took me three months and I had removed over 30 tradelines on my report.

When I first started the credit repair journey, I was surprised at everything that was there on the report. Alot of stuff was from over 10 years old and others that wern't even mine. I just made folders on each tradeline, followed the flow chart on that site sent out my letters and watched my score jump every week. Some I had to mail once, others I mailed three times, and there are still a couple I need to take care of, but since I closed on my house in June I have slacked off and need to start again.

As far as shucking responsibility it depends how you look at it. The "credit Collection Companies" by your debt from the original Creditor {OC} for pennies on the dollar. Then place hits on your report over and over. In my mind if the OC sells it to someone else for pennies, why am I going to pay full amount to someone I wasn't dealing with to begin with. Also in Florida the Statue of Limitations is 5 years on any debt. So if you are like me and couldn't afford to pay it off and the SOL is out you can send them a ciese {spelling} and disist letter, so they can contact you. Also if they don't follow the FCRA and the FDCPA each violation is worth 1000.00. You get 4 violations on them and send a Intend to Sue letter 9 times out of 10 they will delete the tradeline instead of going to court. I have talked to people who has made over 30000.00 by suing these guys.

If your CC is not charged off and you are current up to this point then get a loan, but DO NOT CLOSE THE CC. Sock drawer them, don't use them but for a pack of gum and pay them off. When you close an account it hurts your debt to income ratio and it goes up. There are 2 types of credit limits. The one the CC Company gives you and one the FICO gives you. For the best possible credit rating do NOT spend over 30% of you total CC Credit Limit. When you go over 30% your drops huge.

Any accounts over 2 years old that you decide to pay on will drop you as much as 50-150 points depending on the account. You are bringing them active. The best way to get your score up will be to pay everything on time and to keep your DTI to 30%.

Go here for a free credit report www.freecreditreport.com


To the OP:

Don't go through the settlement companies, what happens is they settle for say 60% of the total. then they sell off that other 40% to another company whom then goes tries to collect it from you. So you have paid the OC the 60 % which brings the account current again on your report, which is a credit hit, then another company buys the left over 40% and puts that on your report, another hit. It is a visious circle that they run and thats why there are laws to protect us. The problem is no one actually takes the time to learn it and thinks they can't protect themselves. When the truth is at first it is very overwhelming, but once you learn it is fairly easy. These companies brake the law all the time. But 95% of us don't know any better, I didn't till I spent the best of 2 days going through that website learning it all.

If anyone has any questions, PM me and I can talk to you about any questions you may have. I am not a professional, or an expert so I don't know all, but I will do the best I can to help.

[Swolf]

Also a couple more of things,

Inquries will kill your credit score. There are 2 types of inquries, Hard Pulls and Soft Pulls

I will start with the hard pulls.

Hard pulls are when you apply for anything, cars, home, cc, they stay on your report for 2 years. What can happen is when you apply for say a car. The dealership "shops" your credit report to all these companies. "Supposidly" all credit pulls within a 2 week time counts as one pull in your score. Sometimes it does other times it dont and it will drop you. A single pull wont hurt you with in say 2-3 months, but they can if you do more then that. Say you go to RJS and they are offering a blanket if you fill out the app. you do that at every game it will tank your score. So don't let anyone pull your credit unless your positive you will get what you apply for.

Soft pulls are basically where companies will look at your report for promotional stuff {CC offers through the mail} but when you fill out the app they will do a hard pull. Just be really careful when asking for new credit. Soft pulls do not hurt your credit score.

Also one of the biggest if not the biggest is late payments. Late payment will kill your score quicker then anything. Always pay everything on time!!!!!!!

I hope all this information is helpful

[Uncle Stan]

SWOLF,

You are 100% right about late payements.

That's a death knoll to your credit rating virtually every time its reported. I was told by someone who works for Equifax, its better to pay something on time, then be late.

[Swolf]

SWOLF,

You are 100% right about late payements.

That's a death knoll to your credit rating virtually every time its reported. I was told by someone who works for Equifax, its better to pay something on time, then be late.

It takes on average 2 years to recover from one late payment, its all about age of the payment, over time the hit less and less then at 2 years it doesn't effect anymore.