Credit Card Relief

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.