Hello All,
I made the decision 3 years ago to quit my job and take care of my father who had a stroke after open heart surgery. Dad is well now!
I have depleted my 401K and next month will no longer have funds to pay my credit cards. I started a new job in Real Estate and will have my first closing in July/August.
I have made arrangements with all creditors except Citibank which stated that because I had a balance transfer (14K @ 3.9% out of a 24 K @ 20.99% debt) at a low rate, they cannot touch the account or help me in any way to reduce payment so that I can pay it off.
I called Citibank 14 different times and no one would help (possibly because I'm current?)
I have 39K total debt with Citibank.
Do I:
1) join a debt settlement company (the one I looked at was greenshield--if anyone has any info on them, please share!)
2) wait until Citi starts contacting me and try to settle it on my own?
Please advise and thank you for your help!
This is really a personal choice, either way it will reflect badly on your credit report, so it will have the same results.
With the debt settlement company they may be able to negotiate a lower pay off for you.
debt settlement
Hi Gweny,
Can you tell me whether or not you have mentioned that you won't be able to continue with your payments? What you can do is request the he bank to waive off the late fees. Mention that you had been regularly making on-time payments, and now because of your financial crisis you won't be able to continue paying on-time for 2-3 months. Make a copy of your monthly income and expenditure. Attach this copy to the letter that you are going to send to the bank. Generally creditors agree to such requests, when a customer has a good payment history.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Aaron
I won't have any money to put towards credit cards until at least August as of right now. I'm in real estate and closings are taking much longer due to short sales clogging the system.
I hope to have a "chunk" of money towards the end of the year and would love to settle with them.
I have had these cards since 1992 and I am losing precious age on them. I also have been late on each of these cards once, back in 2005 by one day (I went on vacation and forgot to schedule the payment).
But, I need to pay my mortgages and cars first, my husbands CC bills (his job is tied to his credit) and then mine.
Right now, with the way the finances are, we only have enough for mortgage, car, husbands CC bills.
I find it so ironic that I will be getting some seriously harrassing phone calls in a month or so from these companies, when if they just worked with me now, I would be able to do something.
If they lowered my payments to 100 until I could get back on my feet, I would pay off the full debt. Now, because they won't even listen, I will ruin my credit (732 score) and they will get a fraction of what is owed to them.
I have CITI card with 12000 balance, missed payment for 4 months now. they want to settle for 3000.
debt settlement
Hi simon,
This is quite a good offer. i think you should agree to this settlement offer. Debt settlement lowers the outstanding debt amount by 40-60%. Get the agreement in writing.
Thanks,
Aaron
I think that the debt settlement can be easily done, just by showing some of the ways to settle the debt.
try
You can find the lowest interest rates to settle the debt to avoid multiple interests
Bargaining Tool
You can also use as a bargaining tool that you may file for bankruptcy if they do not work with you. This may help you in terms of having more leverage in getting the debt settled.