I'm a college student living with a single dad. Unfortunately my father has a bit of a gambling problem (he'd deny it, but its there...i'm working on remedying this). His problem coupled with other costly occurences (automotive repair, etc.) has put us pretty deep into one credit card. I will continue to take loans and work as much as I can to help pay for college, but unfortunately my father's finance charges are a bit too high for him to be able to make any sort of progress on his balance. I'd like to help our crisis as much as possible, but I really have no idea where to start. Can anyone offer me some sort of advice as to what I can do to help our financial situation? I'll give you some basic information from the most recent statement. Balance: $12,000 APR: 27.74% (has been up to 32%) Finance Charges: $300 If you need any other information to be able to give good advice, please let me know...just don't ask for a card #, name, and expiration date =) Any advice is MUCH appreciated. Thank You.
Is this the only card you have? What kind of scores does he have? What kind of scores do you have? I'm wondering if you can get a card with a low balance transfer percent and transfer the balance to it. Of course, you're going to have to take the cards, the checkbook, the ATM card, and anything else he can use to get money to gamble, or you'll be even worse off. And maybe get him in Gambler's Anonymous.
He actually has 3 credit cards. The other two have balances of $1,500 (interest free until 04/07) and $700 (11.9% APR). These two aren't really a concern to him. I'm pretty certain that he has a "poor credit score," although I'm uncertain of what the actual "score" is. One of the reasons he's single is b/c my mother was very financially irresponsible, which I believe is reflected in his credit. Would it be a good idea to find out his official credit score? Can anyone recommend a quality credit score service? I believe that I have no credit b/c I have never had a credit card...but I really wouldn't know. As for the gambling problem, I appreciate the advice...but if you knew the situation you'd understand why all that is not necessary. That may seem naive to say, but I'm confident that if I can find a manageable way out of this credit hole...then he won't feel like he needs to gamble. The transfer idea seems pretty good. Is the basic idea that another credit card company will buy his debt and lower his APR/finance charges? The help is much appreciated. Thank You.
You get another card with a low BT (balance transfer) rate. You transfer the balance to that card and pay it off at the lower rate. You can get a free credit report from each reporting agency once a year. I don't have the numbers handy. Be careful getting the online reports, you want a hard copy one.
after looking at his online credit report...it seems like his credit is fine. can you recommend any cards for transfering his balance? is there anything i should be wary of when searching for cards with low balance transfer fees/percentages/etc? if you can't recommend a card, can you recommend a method of sifting through card offers to find the best one? thank you.
I'd try to find one with a certain rate until it's paid off. Chase and Citi often offer this. Once you get a card and transfer the balance, don't use the card until it's paid off, because if you make purchases or something, those transactions are at a higher rate, and payments are applied to the lowest rate first. Therefore you'll pay off the low rate and accrure all sorts of interest on the others. Always pay off the highest balance cards first, so if you can't transfer everything because you don't get a high enough limit, transfer what you can and then pay minimum payments on the lower rate transfer card until you pay the others off, then work on the low interest. One thing to do is make sure you read ALL the fine print. Some cards, like Discover, will give you a low rate (even 0%) for the life of the transfer, BUT yoiu have to make several purchases a month or quarter or something. DON'T DO THIS, for the reasons detailed above. They're making sure you have some higher rate balances to charge interest on, and that is going to defeat the purpose of this whole exercise.
firstly, is my dad's high apr a result of cash advances...considering he took out a considerable amount at casinos? or did he default possibly by going over his limit (which i believe he has a couple of times)? lets say that we do transfer our balance to a card with a lower apr, or even 0% (a common intro. balance transfer apr)...will this apply to the whole balance? purchases and cash advances? or is there a way from them to determine what part of the balance is a cash advance and which part a purchase? its kind of difficult for me to articulate my question b/c im very new to all this, so please excuse me if youre confused. i know that once the intro. apr for cash balances is finished (typically after 12 months) the standard apr will be applied. will the standard apr reflect the previous cash advances made on the previous card? another question. ive looked at my dads credit report and although it seems fine...he's had a number of applications rejected. when i say it looks fine there are no bad accounts and his payment history seems perfect. is there anything else? are there possibly too many accounts open or are the open accounts too large in comparison to his income? thank you. any help is appreciated.
One of the big things is debt to available credit ratio. If he has high balances in relation to his available credit, that is a real score killer. Yes, cash advances usually have a much higher rate than purchases, so that's possibly why his rates are so high. When you balance transfer to a card, you get the special rate. It's coming in as a balance transfer, so the card you're going to has no way to know if it was a cash advance or purchase. You have to read the terms, but usually balance transfers get the purchase rate when the intro period is up.
