Archive for April, 2009

Technorati Tags: credit, credit card debt, credit repair

My friend is trying to get an apartment and has not been approved yet. He applied for two different apartments, both of which he was not accepted due to his bad credit. What can a person do to get around this problem. He makes plenty of money, he just has a bad credit history. Does anyone know what he can do short of getting a cosigner?

You'll need to rent from a private individual. It will help if you have a previous good rental history. I'd check the local newspaper, but don't fall for those "good credit bad credit" ads and I'd chk Craigslist for rentals. You can also chk bulletin boards in public places for rental lisitings by private parties.
http://chicago.craigslist.org/

I'm wondering if anyone has had any success using those debt consolidation companies and if so, what's the process of it? How does it work and will it really work at lowering your interest rate/debt owed? And what company(ies) did you use? Thanks!

Don't do it! I know a ton of people who used those so called "debt consolidation" companies who went further into debt over them. No matter what, you will always owe what you did not pay.. .often they promise to remove things from your credit…..don't fall into this, you can dispute inaccurate things yourself. In the long run, you may end up owing the debt consolidation company itself….which could be worse!

Stop charging, start paying cash. Pay all your current bills on-time, and keep current accounts in good standing current and in good standing.

Review all your credit reports, then learn how to live on a budget so you can start paying off your debt. Ex: shop cheaper, eat in instead of out, temporarily forfeit the lavishes you do not NEED, like a $70 bottle of lotion. I find eBay and Craig's list are a great place to sell things you do not use. You can get extra $$! One of the first steps to controlling debt, is controlling the way you spend money. Especially if you are spending money you do not have!

Then, make arrangements through the mail only with your collectors. Work out a deal you can afford. Ex $50 a month to each delinquent account. Then ask for a letter of deletion once the debt is paid off. Make sure you get this in writing if they agree.

As far as lowering the finance charges, you can request that yourself. Just write and ask. Or, if it is your credit card company, just call and ask.

Good Luck!

I have 2 credit cards and they're not even that much. I've been paying every month to reduce the balance but after interest charges, it seems to go straight back up. I recently checked my credit score, and it's in pretty OK shape. I know if I get another credit card, my credit limit will be enough to cover for both debts. My plan is to just get a new credit card with no interest for one year and pay them off then cancel my other 2 credit cards.
Is that a safe idea? Will it affect my credit score (negatively) that much to do so?
Thanks.

If you have the option of transferring the balances from the other high interest credit cards to one with o interest for one year then do so.You will be saving a ton of interest payments.Do not however cancel the other two credit cards even if you never use them again in your life.They way they go about calculating your credit score is based on how much credit you actually have versus how much you owe.Every card has a credit amount and it goes up as years go by.

I need help with credit repair. I have tried it on my own but have not been able to do it. I have been told these guys are really good. Just wanted to know if there is anyone else who has used them. Thanks.

I strongly believe that no person should pay for help in fixing their credit. If you already have recent copies of your credit reports and the money to begin paying on your bills, all you need is to do some research on how to negotiate with your creditors.

I run a website that gives free advice on how to do this. You can find a link to it in my profile. You can also search the web for more information if you like.

Good luck!

I have about $5 grand of credit card debt now which can be brought down to 0, in less than a year, depending on how much I really want to pay it off. However, is carrying large amounts of debt (even if you CAN pay it off) bad? I don't see how. Isn't that the entire BUSINESS of credit cards anyways?

If you have good credit and a decent income….apply for a new card that will give you a 0% balance transfer….I balanced transfered $5K in debt from a card charging 18% to a fixed 0% for two years….I've saved over $1K in interest charges. This enabled me to pay the debt off in installments without interest charges.

A site I've used for info in the past …

http://debt.knowledged.info/credit_card.html

Good Luck.

Plastic money is the fastest and simplest way to buy something without causing too much of trouble. It reduces hassles, is convenient and is used more and more by many people nowadays. Be it shopping online, movie tickets, or air tickets, a credit card is the best way to buy them. But, plastic money is also the fastest way to debt. Experts say that if you do not have control over your spending habits, then a credit card can get you into debt real fast. You will not notice how the debt piles on until it reaches a situation where you can no longer manage it. Once the debt pile reaches its maximum and you start defaulting on payments, then the entire cycle of threatening calls from collection agencies, payment reminders etc start.

Debt Consolidation

Credit card debt consolidation loans are loans that are designed to ease off all the pressure and help you to clear off the debt that you have piled on with a credit card. In debt consolidation, you borrow a loan amount from the lender and utilize it to repay all your current debts. Then you make a single monthly payment to the lender from whom you have borrowed the loan. There are many advantages to a credit card debt consolidation loan.

The interest rates of consolidation loans are much lower than the credit card debts itself. So you will be paying a much smaller amount each month than what you are paying currently.

Instead of making many monthly payments earlier, now all that you have to do is make one single payment every month. So it reduces a lot of hassles for you. You do not have to worry about lapsed payments as all you have to do is remember one single payment.

If there are chances that you will default on a monthly payment, all you need to do is make one phone call instead of several phone calls that you would have made earlier. One creditor is always easier to deal than several creditors.

Consolidation Tips

If you are still uncertain whether to consolidate or not, then the best thing to do would be to calculate all the interest rates that you have from all cards and tally it with the new interest rate on the loan. If the rate on the loan is much lower then you know your answer. On the other hand, if you have a card which has a rate that is much lower than the rate that you are getting on the loan, then you need not include that card in the consolidation loan.

End of Stress

Stress is something that will come naturally if you have debts. By using the credit card debt consolidation loans, you will be reducing a lot of stress for yourself. The stress of paying all the loans on time and not meeting the creditors’ demands will all be gone with consolidation. Give a thought to the time that you will save yourself with credit card consolidation loans. Most people do not realize that a bad debt problem is fairly easy to deal with if you plan it well. It’s the planning that is missing in most of the situations. So plan your finances well and use credit card debt consolidation loans effectively.

anonymous
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/credit-card-debt-consolidation-get-out-of-trouble-the-easy-way-91669.html

Good credit score is necessary if we want to live normal lives. Lots of people make mistake of not paying enough attention to their credit rating even though without good credit many of the everyday things like renting a car, apartment or having a credit card would be unavailable to us.

Each time you do not pay your creditor on time it will be reported to the credit bureau and your credit score will be adjusted accordingly. And in case that it happens often or even you allow your loans to go default, you are going to find yourself in a situation needing credit repair.

Why will you need credit repair? Well with poor credit score you might forget about getting a credit card or a loan of any kind. Well not probably of any kind, but you will be forced to take a loan with a much higher interest rate and because of that your monthly payments will be even harder to make on time.

So how to begin with repairing your credit? You have a number of options here, you can either try a do it yourself credit repair or you can hire a credit repair company to help you.

Your initial research will lead you to a lot of companies that advertise themselves on the web and in newspaper. Most of them use a very aggressive marketing techniques and offer many promises they can not keep.

Be very careful of this promises because simply put there is no fast credit repair. Even if your credit is damaged only by a few incorrect items in your credit report it will take months before those items are cleared.

Also many of these ads are just scams, with all the identity theft around you must think at least twice before giving your sensitive, private information to a company you have never before heard for.

When it comes to do it your self credit repair you should know that whatever a credit repair company can do for you, you can do yourself. What that means is do not listen if somebody promises you a credit repair in a few weeks, credit bureaus work for themselves and are not associated with credit repair companies in any way.

Nobody can erase bad items from your credit report if those items are correct. In most cases a credit repair company will persuade you to challenge all of the negative items on your report.

Sometimes they might even propose engaging in illegal activities, do not take this route, even if it does not get you in a trouble with a law any credit improvement will be only temporary.

Much better way for this is do it yourself credit repair, go online and search for information. The best places for information are well trusted, established credit repair companies and law offices and naturally the government sites.

Step 1 - Get the copy of your credit report from a reputable provider.

Step 2 - Examine it thoroughly for any mistakes, if you find any try to dispute them. Be sure to dispute ONLY the incorrect items.

Step 3 - If you can not find any errors you are in deep credit trouble and will have to go through the complete repair process like debt consolidation and maybe even bankruptcy.

One simple step is to apply for a secure credit card. Just be sure to pay the bills for it regularly and by doing this you will start a slow but steady process of repairing your credit score.

This process will require a large amount of patience and determination from you. But by improving financial responsibility you are going to be in a position to payback your debts on time. By doing so you are going to prove to them that you can be trusted with a credit.

Once again keep in mind that credit repair will take both time and patience, but by undergoing do it yourself credit repair you will profit in the long run.

Nikola Govorko
http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/how-to-start-do-it-your-self-credit-repair-68700.html

Credit card debt has been an ongoing problem ever since the credit card was created in 1950. People were going into debt at an astounding rate. Many are trapped into unbearable credit card debt that they couldn’t possibly pay it all back.

A debt free life is a dream to many debtors. There are many options available today for you to get rid of your credit card debt, but the keys to success are your patient and consistency to carry out the plan in your selected option. This article will discuss on one of credit card debt solutions called Credit Counseling.

What is Credit Counseling?

Credit counseling was introduced by federal government to provide counseling services and help you to find out what steps you could take in order to relieve from your debt. The credit counseling companies will assist you to set up a payback plan that will help you to get out of debt within a certain years.

The credit counseling agencies are designed to be non-profit, which means majority of your payments must be earmarked for debt payment. However, credit counseling agencies can legally collect a small fee for administrative costs, but most of the counseling services’ fees are paid by the lenders themselves, which send back to the services a portion of the payments received.

How Does Credit Counseling Work?

Typically, counseling services help you to negotiate lower payments with credit-card companies. Before a credit counselor proposes to you a repayment plan, he normally will do some assessment on your current financial status and get detail information on your debt condition.

Your counselor can then map out different ways to debt consolidation, potentially pushing all or most of your outstanding balances onto one or two low interest cards or even taking out a debt consolidation loan to get rid of some or all of your credit card debt.

When Do You Need Credit Counseling?

If you are able to pay your bills and are current on all your accounts, you almost certainly don’t need credit counseling. If your interest rates are too high, you usually can negotiate a lower rate with your credit-card companies just by asking or threatening to move your account elsewhere.

You will need credit counseling if:

• You can’t pay the minimums on your credit cards.

• You’re consistently late paying one or more of your regular bills.

• You’re being hounded by creditors and collection agencies.

• Your efforts to work out reasonable repayment plans with your creditors have failed.

If you are too serious in dept, a credit counseling service may not able to successfully help to negotiate with credit card companies for a payment that will give you breathing room or get you out of debt. If that is true, bankruptcy may be the best of bad options.

In Summary

If you have unbearable credit card debt and the harassing creditor phone calls have made you in deeply stress which causes you can’t think of an idea or a way to settle your credit card debt, a credit counseling service should be able to help you. By going through credit counseling process, you will have a better picture on the options available to you to get rid of your debt; enroll to propose payback plan that best suit you financial capability.

Cornie Herring
http://www.articlesbase.com/credit-articles/get-rid-of-credit-card-debt-with-credit-counseling-88739.html

Introductory credit card offers are good bargains if you have a good discretionary logic and know what to pick and what to leave. Rather than picking up the first time offer that comes your way, if you spend some time searching the internet for good instant offer, you can get really good offers.

Internet being a massive storehouse for information, it takes little effort to compare all features of various credit card offers floating in the market. For issuing companies, atypical to any retail industry company, the guiding principal is: the more the merrier. Higher the customer base, the better are the results for issuing companies and happier they are.

So, credit card companies employ various kinds of marketing and advertising tools to attract more consumers, both first time users and converted users. One of the most commonly used marketing tools in credit card industry today are certified indeed- introductory offers.

Introductory credit card offers come in various formats, and most common format is waiver of some or in other charges. While some introduction specials waive off first years annual fees, other offers waive off or have reduced transaction fees. Still other introductory credit card offers have reduced zero percent APR rates.

But, there are no free lunches and no free cards, as you may know. However, you should use your discretion while opting for such tempting applications. Credit companies sometimes offer tempting introductory orders while hiding not so good points under fine prints or with the help of arcane words and finance jargon.

For example, a lot of issuers promising zero percent APR, that is annual percentage rates, actually offer reduced APRs as an introductory offer and then charge higher than industry rates once the introductory period is over.

In this age of Internet and instant connectivity, you will always find a good introductory offer the moment you decide to opt for one. A simple search in popular search engines will probably throw hundreds of introduction cards right now offers ranging from good bargains to outright steal bargains.

Armed with a bit of patience and some diligence you should be able to find out the best possible introductory credit card offer for yourself. As it is rightly said, a book should not be judged by its covers- similarly, any financial consultant will tell you that a credit card cannot be and should not be judged by the introductory offer it makes. Instead, a credit card should be chosen based on your spending pattern as well as how much you earn.

Additionally, you should take into account various other features offered by issuing companies, especially in the charges applied as well annual subscription fees. If you have decided to apply for a credit card, it makes better sense to apply for introductory offers in a safe place online. The final word being, identify a credit card by the mullah they charge, and not by the freebies they give away as an introductory credit card offer.

Joe Maldonado
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/introductory-credit-card-offer-secret-insights-95252.html