I fell on some hard times, and had older debt that I payed minimum payments for years since my college days, and now I want to clean up my credit. The only problem, I have bad debt, charge offs, collection agencies. Unfortunatly I fell into the "Credit Counceling" pit, and until last Feb was making payments through Ameridebt. But after a year and a half, I realized that only 2 of my 6 debts had actually gone down by more than $100 and at that rate, I would be shelling out money to them for an additional 5 or 6 years. That just wasn't going to work. So now the question is, what method should I take to get this cleared up. I was thinking I might get my credit reports from all 3 then start saving up money, then make offers to the credit card companies as payment? 50% or so? Is there a better way? I've changed phone numbers, so now none of the creditors have my home or work number, so I fortunatly don't have to deal with the harassing phone calls. Any help that anyone who either is a professional, or has gone through and fixed up a situation like mine I would appreciate. Thanks in advance for all your help.
The majority of the people on this board have been where you are right now. I've heard of creditors settling for as little as 30% of the original debt. Getting your reports is the best start. Depending on how old your bad debt is, you may be able to get a secured card or a subprime card to help you rebuild while you repair. There's a lot of good information on this board, so surf to your heart's content. It also doesn't hurt to just dispute everything to see if any of your accounts have "fallen through the cracks".
Sorry to hear about your misfortune with Ameridebt. I used a credit counseling service (Christian Credit Counselors) and NEVER had one problem with them. Most of my creditors stopped charging me interest. Only 2 creditors wouldn't stop charging interest, but they reduced the interest to like 6%. After 3 months of on-time payments from CCC, all but one sleazy creditor, aged my account, so it was no longer past due. What's more, CCC never charged me a fee. It was all free. After I got on my feet, I increased my payments to CCC from 238 to 308. And I directed them as to whom to pay the extra money to. I send a letter and a spreadsheet for them to follow. They followed it to the letter. My account rep was very good. A little later, I started dumping 566 to CCC and I paid off my last account in Jan...2 years from when they SAID I'd be done. If you want to go the dispute way, then go for it. If you want to settle your debts (and you have the cash to do it), use Lexington. They do debt settlement. In any case, NEVER PAY WITHOUT GETTING IT REMOVED FROM YOUR CRA. It doesn't help you to pay if you're not going to benefit from it. Also, if it's 2 or more years old, there really isn't much incentive to pay at all. The older it gets, the less it hurts you. And if you pay, it'll be re-aged, so be careful and good luck.
Re: Help needed for problems Author: Shantel (192.189.124.43) Date: 04-06-01 07:24 (Christian Credit Counselors) Never heard of them-could you tell me how to contact them? thank you! Also, if it's 2 or more years old, there really isn't much incentive to pay at all. The older it gets, the less it hurts you. And if you pay, it'll be re-aged, so be careful and good luck.== You mean there is some thing in the credit laws that works for us instead of against us for a change?
I found it at http://www.christianccc.org/ and it doesn't sound too bad, except for me that many of my debts are in collection right now.
