Credit Card Relief - 2010

Debt relief is a growing concern for Americans but you might find the statistics interesting as we look to years past and the relationship between debt and other factors. Here's a view consumer debt by the specific United States President and their Term. 


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<img src="http://www.ccrnow.com/images/15516/debt-relief.png" alt="Consumer Credit by Presidential Term" /><br /><a href="http://www.ccrnow.com" title="Debt Relief">Debt Relief</a>

If you are like a growing group of people that are struggling to keep up with your ever growing credit card debt you are probably experiencing the incredibly frustrating experience of collection calls.  These credit card companies have a singular mission to get whatever money they can from you before you give it to the next credit card company.  They use the telephone, it's actually a computer that auto dials your number sometimes as much as ten times a day.  They frequently don't leave messages, the caller id usually says "blocked" or "withheld" or "private".  If they do leave a message it is usually in the form of a thinly veiled threat or over exaggerated importance of the call.

They are allowed to start calling at 8am and have to stop at 10pm.  That's 14 hours of uninterrupted telephone harassment.  If you have six cards that can be as many as sixty or more calls every day, seven days a week.  Are you ready to change your  phone number yet?  If you do, be careful.  Let's say you have one credit card you keep out of the program and use.  They will want your new number and when you give it to them they will share it with every credit card company in the country.  The short term solution is to pay the card you have kept out of the program in a timely manner.  Don't volunteer the new phone number until they insist on it.  But be prepared for a letter asking for your new number.

Now to answer the original question "does debt ever take a holiday"?  The answer is "no", the interest rate clock just keeps on ticking and adding up.  However, there is a bright spot on the horizon.  We just experienced it.  Credit card companies don't call on Christmas day.  Oh well another 295 days to go until the phones are silent again for at least 24 hours.

Want to stop the madness?  Take control of your finances and your telephone and call Credit Card Relief toll free 888-674-6540.  We've been helping people get out of debt in months instead of years all while saving thousands of dollars.  Remember the consultation is free and the relief is real!

The three major credit reporting agencies spend millions of dollars to convince you that the most important thing in your life is your credit score.  It's called a FICO score named after the Fair Isaac Credit Organization.  First of all there is very little if anything that is fair about Isaac and his organization.  It is an arbitrary super secret formula known only to its creator and thoroughly manipulated by credit issuers.  The agencies merely report what information they receive from creditors.  That probably is where the problem starts.  Don't fall prey to the Credit Repair scams that love to prey on folks with challenged (low) credit scores.  The Federal Trade Commission defines credit improvement as the continuous act of the consumer paying his or her bills on time as agreed to with the credit issuer and time.  In other words if you behave, forget what financial pressures you are under, your score will go up.  The more your score goes up the greater chance you have to get into debt again.

Are you beginning to see the picture?  The card issuers want to be in your life forever charging the highest possible interest rates, the most restrictive of terms allowing them to charge whatever the legal limit is on maximum charges including late charges, over-limit charges and interest rates in excess of 30%.

They call a customer who pays the balance in full every month a deadbeat customer.  They call the rest of us who are struggling just to keep up with the monthly minimums - great customers.  At the rate of just paying the monthly minimums we will be paying the bank for the next 25 to 30 years.  Do the math if your calculator has 12 or 20 decimal places to calculate the total interest paid.

When people join our program we have a frank discussion with them about credit scores.  We remind them that if they have been late one or two times already their credit score has already suffered.

The good news is Credit Scores Don't Stay the Same.  We have successfully mediated over $150 million dollars of consumer debt.  Most of it credit cards.  It has been our experience that as these debts are settled, the debt to income ratio (the balance between what you make and own versus what you owe) tilts toward the positive and credit scores traditionally go up.

Not doing anything for fear of harming one's credit is a losing proposition if you are struggling to just pay the minimums.  Take a look at the long term effect rather than the short term.  Ask one of our Enrollment Specialists to explain how the Credit Card Relief program works.  Even if there is a short term hit on your credit score, getting out of debt in months instead of years really can save you thousands and push that FICO score into "fair" territory.