Those whiney people in debt relief ads

[smileyeagle1021]

Oh, I just feel like reaching through the radio and slapping these people every time the ad comes on.
I'm sure you've all heard them, where the poor lady comes on "they don't care if you are sick or out of work, they only care about getting you to pay" waah-waah-waah.
Now, I understand some people really do have legitimate reasons for the trouble they are in, but the voice over is talking about if you have more than $10,000 in credit card debt. Unless you were stupid and paid for medical bills on a credit card (rather than on account with the hospital, which every hospital I've ever dealt with is willing to do) and you have failed to take advantage of the housing and utility assistance available to those who are out of work (I know it's there, I relay for people who are getting those programs all the time), then you have not just suddenly gotten $10,000 in credit card debt, that has been growing since long before the recession started.
When you borrowed the money, you did so with the understanding that *gasp* you'd have to pay it back, it is not the bank's fault that you didn't plan far enough ahead to have a safety net for if things went bad. I admit that my safety net will be completely depleted by the end of the year and I will start having to carry a balance on credit cards, but that safety net has lasted me for over a year and still paid for me to go to school, if I could have gotten that built up while working at jobs that have paid only $9-10 an hour, then there is no reason why these poor middle class people couldn't do it also.
I don't know about the rest of y'alls, but I was raised that if you can't afford it, don't buy it, and if you do end up buying it, expect to face the consequences. So while I can understand that these people are in trouble, please don't expect any sympathy from me when you come whining and crying about how mean that bank is that they actually expect you to pay them back their money just as you had agreed to, even though you probably knew that you couldn't afford it.

[blas87]

Those ads are overly dramatic.

I love the ones for law firms, the really cheaply made ones with "real" clients, who have the sob story "A drunk driver hit and killed my husband and I thought I'd be stuck with all these bills, until I called Dick, Suck, and Fuck Law Firm! They saved my life!"

Ok Then.

[telecom_goddess]

I am in one of those debt consolidation plans....and actually it's taking what was a horrible situation and making it a lot better for me, after 2 and 1/2 years...going on 3 soon actually. One of my debts was completely dismissed...a huge credit card one too.

I'm not trying to sound like a commercial here I'm just saying that they do help...even though the commercials sound dumb.

[Tanasi]

You've really got to be careful with those debt consolidation or credit counseling services. Some are legitimate most are scams. Debt consolidation are worse (IMO) in that they in effect buy your debt but at a much discounted price. What the CC companies don't get they write it off and it shows on your credit as a partial charge off. If you're not worried about your credit then OK if so then I'd suggest a credit counseling service. I know one guy that had over $70k on 5 cards (he truly didn't know he had that much debt.) The CCS got his interest rates drastically reduced as well as monthly payments. He paid the CCS and they distrubuted the money among the CC companies. The CCS charged him $20 a month for this service. In under 5 years he was out of debt. Yes he did live poor but he did live and is the better for it, he only other alternative was bankruptcy.
With medical bills in my state the providers are required to let you run an account. As long as you are paying at least $10 a month on each account then you're in good and they can't put the collection agencies on you but but miss and they're all over you. Granted in some cases you'll never get the debt paid off but at least you're paying the debt. Added plus they can't charge interest.

Dependent upon the situation and the type of debt I'm against the dismissial of debt. It's not fair that the others that pay their bills be burdened with someone else's debt. SE I also get tired of the whinning so much so I turn the channel.

[AdminAssistant]

then you have not just suddenly gotten $10,000 in credit card debt, that has been growing since long before the recession started.
When you borrowed the money, you did so with the understanding that *gasp* you'd have to pay it back, it is not the bank's fault that you didn't plan far enough ahead to have a safety net for if things went bad.

Yup. Fiance used to come across this all the time when he worked for the mortgage company. Yes, some people found themselves in foreclosure because their pension was cut or they had a medical emergency. But the greater majority just bought the house they couldn't afford, and they would yell at him as if it were *his* fault that they couldn't make their payments. Either him personally or the big ol' evil banks that are out to fleece everybody.

[Greenday]

It kills me when I hear people complain about being in debt from credit cards. It's like they didn't think they'd have to pay them off. Why would you spend thousands of dollars when you know you can't afford it?

[Andara Bledin]

A lot of times it's a gradual thing.

Something happens and things get tight, so you start putting a couple of things on the card, and then a few more, and it's not so bad at first, but things don't get better and what was once manageable becomes unmanageable, and since you still can't deal with it, it just keeps getting worse until it's totally out of control.

But the commercials are still incredibly whiny and annoying.

^-.-^

[telecom_goddess]

A lot of times it's a gradual thing.

Something happens and things get tight, so you start putting a couple of things on the card, and then a few more, and it's not so bad at first, but things don't get better and what was once manageable becomes unmanageable, and since you still can't deal with it, it just keeps getting worse until it's totally out of control.

But the commercials are still incredibly whiny and annoying.

^-.-^

exactly. I was doing things like buying groceries, paying for deposits on apartments when I had to move, and the electric bill on the credit cards sometimes. And I accrued the required 10,000 in debt not just from credit cards, but those combined with medical bills and the like. It can just snowball. But again I am getting out of it and it will all be gone and I don't plan on getting anymore, inspite of the fact that I guess that messes up your credit rating too. Whatever I just want this monkey off my back.

[Andara Bledin]

Actually, if you don't have a revolving credit account, you pretty much can't buy anything that needs a loan without having someone else co-sign. And even if you do have a revolving account, you still have to have some record of having made a larger-scale purchase.

I just got to play this game with the car. The boyfriend was going to purchase it because I should have a judgment against me on mine. Except all he has is a credit card in his name which is a company card that sees a high volume of use. But since he's never had a major purchase in his name they wouldn't do anything without a substantial downpayment.

We added me to the application to see what would happen (and because I couldn't find the judgment on my report, which has me puzzled, but I'm not going to argue), and because I'd bought a fridge through a rent-to-own place, that bumped us up just enough for us to get a lender to work with us. After we get half a year of on-time payments on our records we're going in to re-finance and get a less usurious rate.

Oh, buying through rent-to-own isn't a bad idea. I had done it originally because we had no choice, we had to have a fridge. But I paid it off before the deadline, so I didn't have to pay anything beyond the base price (higher than if I'd bought from a store, but half the price if I'd stuck with weekly payments). And it'll give you a nice piece of history on your credit report.

So, first I bought a fridge. That has made it possible for me to buy a car. Once that's paid off, we'll be in position to work on buying a house.

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

It kills me when I hear people complain about being in debt from credit cards. It's like they didn't think they'd have to pay them off. Why would you spend thousands of dollars when you know you can't afford it?

A question I've asked several times of myself. Way back when, I was a window cleaner for a short while. I was doing the inside of an office (I had no idea what they did in there at the time) and the woman on the phone was talking to a 'customer'.

The thing that pricked up my ears was the question, "If you knew you couldn't pay it back, why did you take out the finance for it?"

It's an aspect of society that we've become far more materialistic and expecting something to come along and sort everything out.

Rapscallion

[HYHYBT]

Yes, it can creep up on you, and sudden changes like losing a job, especially if it takes a long time to find another one, can turn what was manageable before into an impossibility... but what killed me on the cards was that, while they seemed happy to keep my interest rate reasonable so long as my balance stayed the same or rose, as soon as I got serious about paying them down they doubled the rate, making it impossible. This does not seem, from what little I've gathered, the usual way of things, but it sure stuck me with a pickle.

Edit to respond to the post immediately above: that's often the key, "If you knew you couldn't pay it back..." I find it hard to believe that most people who take out loans know they won't be able to pay it back. Some people are poor at math; some people don't think things through; some people's situations change. And yes, some people have no intention of paying it back from the start... but I have to hope that's the exception.

[Ghel]

Me, too.

Er, that is, I agree with what you guys are saying.

I just wanted to clarify one thing from Andara's story. It may not be simply that your credit was better. When a bank looks at an application, they're looking at your income in addition to your credit history. So it may be that the bank looked at your combined income and said to themselves, "together, they have the income to be able to repay this loan."

[Andara Bledin]

When a bank looks at an application, they're looking at your income in addition to your credit history. So it may be that the bank looked at your combined income and said to themselves, "together, they have the income to be able to repay this loan."

Oh, I'm sure that's the case as well, but they specifically told the boyfriend that if they couldn't find something to work, he should make a purchase such as what I'd done with the fridge to give him the payment history that his record was lacking. We actually plan to buy a PS3 or a Wii in the same manner sometime in the future to further bolster our situation. It will cost slightly more than if we just bought one outright, but will not only be easier to handle expense-wise (weekly payments are very convenient - usually about the cost of one dinner out) it will be another data point on our records to indicate our financial responsibility.

As an aside, our ratings are 742 and 736, his and mine respectively.

^-.-^

[linguist]

It kills me when I hear people complain about being in debt from credit cards. It's like they didn't think they'd have to pay them off. Why would you spend thousands of dollars when you know you can't afford it?

sometimes it's not a matter of choice, but a matter of necessity. a couple of years ago my wife and i were doing ok financially, but not great, and certainly weren't prepared to have to deal with a catastrophic event. then i was hospitalized for almost a month, then recovering and unable to work for another two months. once my leave time ran out, and we had drained our savings, we had to start using credit cards to keep the bills paid, since we couldn't do so on solely my wife's income. then, the medical bills started rolling in, and there was another several thousand dollars that mostly got put on credit cards (and thank god for insurance, since we just had to pay up to the out-of-pocket max, instead of the full quarter of a million that the total bill came to). we're slowly digging ourselves out of that hole, and probably will be for some time, but it's not one we put ourselves into willingly.

[Tanasi]

On occasion I'll read those articals on MSN.COM that tells you the worst thing or best thing you can do to/for your credit rating. In some instances the articles contradict themselves so what's a person to do?
I honestly do not know my FICO score and at this time I have no desire to know. I've learned from experience that there are very few things worth going into long term debt. A friend of mine right out of college bought a POS Chevy Nova (one of the 80's models a real small car.) He got a job selling ads for the yellow pages. He drove that car to death. In two years it had nearly 100K on it and it was basically worthless and he still owed 2 to 3 years on it, couldn't even dream of paying it off and it was starting to tear up on him. Somehow within another year he found a fool to finance the balance and another car, he took care of this car.

I don't know it for fact, but I was told by some reliable folks that home loans were granted to some folks that didn't have a job and hadn't had a job in several years, had bank-ruptcies and felony records for fraud. I can only assume the real reason they got the loan was they fulfilled a checkmark in a column on a sheet somewhere.