What happens when you stop paying your credit cards?
So I’ve done some research and I know all of the consequences of walking away from credit card debt. But I am not sure what I should do. I know many people have asked this same question and were told to get credit counseling. I’ve also looked into that and most places charge a fee which i can not afford to pay. I’ve also looked into debt consolidation loans, which i am not eligible for. I’ve even called my credit card companies and asked for a lower interest rate and was denied. I can not afford to get an attorney. This is my situation. I was young and dumb got a bunch of credit cards. I think I have about $ 4.500 in credit card debt. I try to pay more then the minimum monthly payment but my interest rates have increased and I can not afford the monthly payments. I also have student loans and a bank loan that I pay on as well. Those loans are obviously more important then my credit cards. I pay on these cards and the balance never goes down. I do not even use the cards anymore, it does make a difference. Any HELPFUL suggestions or advice from personal experience is appreciated.
try a debt councellor.
Just pay minimum payment. If you don’t your credit will go down! A LOT!! So if credit is important find a way.. Get another job
Pay the bills, Sorry it sounds rude, but thats the only thing you can do
there are free services out there that will help with debt consolidation, keep looking and you will find one but either way, you are going to have to pay them off…..and if it means paying a fee then pay it, in the long run it will help.
Try negotiating with the lender in lieu of defaulting on the cards. Maybe they can offer some relief.
All promises to repay are important; and any default crushes your credit.
Transfer your credit cards to another credit card with a lower interest rate. I believe Chase Mastercard is pretty good. As for making the payments, enroll in programs that automatically take some money out of your paycheck to pay your credit card. My friend enrolled in that and it worked for her.
When you stop paying your credit card the credit card company takes away the credit card, or discards it. So you can’t use it anymore. Thanks.
You may need to sell something to pay off your debt or get a second job. If you get a second job, use every cent you earn to pay off those debts. If you can make an extra $500 a month, you can get the $4500 paid off in 9 months.
Most likely you should just talk to the card company and let them know what kind of payment schedule that you can be on.
if you stop paying your credit cards you will be reported to collections~ if you fail to pay, they may garnish your pay or take legal action~ your choice~ pay them or file bankrupt
The creditors will start calling you day and night. Your credit rating will go way down and you will have a hard time getting credit again (especially to get a mortgage or a car loan). Eventually your case will end up with a collections attorney who will try to legally seize your assets.
You need to pay off these cards, your credit will go down for 7 years if you dont pay, that means you cant get anything, a car, a house nothing 7 years is a long time. Get a loan from a family member pay them off then cut them off! Get a second job pay them off!!
After a while, like years, they will present you with a settlement offer for you to pay. It will be something like half. But I think it will still somehow show up on your credit. Like slow payment. Good luck.
The credit card companies will track you down by a credit reporting agency report. They know where you live by your social security number, and bank accounts. They can also access your phone numbers even if you have an unlisted number. I find it strange that big brother will have so much information on us. But they do.
If they can not get you on the phone, they will sue you and take away your income by court order. They can also get a court order to take money out of your bank account.
destroying your credit for a small amount like 4,500 is not worth it… i screwed myself like that and it took 10 years to get back on track… go see a Credit counselor, they can work with the nanks to get you squared away.
When you stop paying your credit cards assuming that you still owe on them. You go in debt, plain and simple. You need to call the company and ask why the interest rate is not going down and that you can not afford to pay what you are paying for the card. Ask what kind of payment plan can they offer you. Go to a credit councilor is a big start.
I think your best bet is to tell the truth to the credit officer. Usaully, the set interest rate is not negotiable. You better try to work harder and more to earn more to pay back the debt you owed.
I was going to say try Citizens Advice until I noticed the “dollars” so I assume you’re not in the UK. Do you have an equivalent of this or a help bureau who can assist with something like this? I’ve never been in the situation so I’m afraid that’s all I can offer.
STEPHEN: If you can’t try to be helpful with the question, WTF did you bother answering? A question mark doesn’t help anyone. You can’t be THAT desperate for two points, surely?
If you stop paying your credit cards , you will be put into collection, then they will try to get the money from you, sometimes you can make different arrangements with them..it will go on your credit for 7 years.and they can also get a judgement on you , which then you have to go to court and you and the judge will arrange for a payment plan in which you have to follow too a T or you can be in bigger trouble.Oh and always remember if you do make arrangements to pay, never pay thru your checking account, always send a money order or they can garish your account.
I just got out of college, and I am in pretty much the same situation, I have about 2000 in CC debt, and about 15k in student loans. All I can say is talk to the CC companies… I had one card with a balance of 1100 (1000 limit) all because of late fees. I called and told them that I hadn’t got the bill(small fib) and the lady took off like 75 worth of late fees. Also if you threaten to cancel it, or declare bankruptcy they will bend over backwards to help you out. Any repayment is better than none in their books. Otherwise, keep at it, and keep looking for counseling, there are a few places that can help for free/very small fee.
You can file for bankruptcy or try an online credit card repayment plan. There is one called Care One . You could take a look at it.
Good Luck
At first, you’ll get friendly reminders in the mail. Next, you’ll start to get phone calls.
After that, the account will be turned over to collections. The phone calls will continue, and the registerd mail will start. Eventually, the credit card company will write off the balance and sell it, for pennies on the dollar, to collection agencies.
The colleciton agencies will start calling you non-stop and sending you lots of letters. They may also “innocently” call family or neighbors trying to get in touch with you. This will go on until seven years have passed from the time you first went late with the payment.
The negative information will be reported to the credit repositories. This will make it difficult, if not impossible, for you to get a car loan, mortgage, or credit card. It may cause your insurance rates to go up.
Unfortunately for you this problem will not go away. You have to talk to the credit card companies and get them to really listen to you. As a general rule they would rather have some money than none. Do you have a bank account if so make an appointment to see a financial adviser. A bank loan to pay off all the cards would be cheaper for you. If you do not have a bank account see an in dependant advice organisation Here in the U.K we have what is called a citizen advice bureau. They give advice and help completely free of any charge and are not tied to any financial organisation. Hope this help you.
Welcome to the Credit Card trap!!!, well honey, there is not alot you can do to advoid this debt you are in. The only thing you can do is just stop paying them, however this will go against your credit history and prevent you getting things you may want in the future that depend on your credit history.
You can just stop paying them, they won’t lock you up or anything, they will just continue to bill you and the total will increase dramatically once you stop paying because weather you have noticed or not, if you just have one late payment, they charge you $30.00 a month for each payment late, and then that continously builds up your debt w/them. Good Luck honey, I was fortuate enough to learn from seeing my mother drown herself in debt as a child, so luckily I refuse to give all these people that interest!!!
maybe should have thought about that before getting credit cards. i am 27 and never had one. bless me!!! anyways ….my sis is in over 30,000 in cc debt, and she pays a low payment ….60 bucks a month and it goes towards all the cards she owes on. credit card counselling helped her with that. look into it. the simple fee for starting is nothing compared to never being able to get a home, and never having a car, etc…….
good luck!!
Go to the C A B, Citizen Advice Bureau. See if they can help.
Cancel the cards and freeze the debt..you will still have to make a monthly payment but the interest can be stopped. This will mean no more cards for five years or more, but you will have learned a lesson, got out of trouble and be free of this burden of paying and paying and never getting any nearer to being debt free.
Talk to the credit companies first of course, tell them what you want done and how much you will be able to pay once the debt debt is frozen…and make sure that you are both talking about the same thing they may threaten you with court action but it will cost them less to agree to this arrangements than to chase you through the courts.
Have you tried Debt Consolidation or Proposal.
some call it Proposal and other Debt Consolidation.
This is a ‘safety valve’ used in our consumer based society.
It will bruise your credit (temporary) until you finish the proposed arrangement. this is normally done by a counselor or an accountant.
Good Luck,
A very dear friend of mine got caught in the credit card trap. Over a period of 4 years paying on the cards, the balances went up and not down….even though they were not being used. And before she took drastic action. She added up up what she had charged and what she had actually paid and found that she had pay MORE THAN she had charged by quite a bit. The balances owed reflected, interest and addition added amounts. My friend called the companies and they all suspended all interest for one year which helped her get a little ahead, but since her debt on the cards was so high she finally decided to let them go and get behind for about 6 months. She then called them and negotiated a settlement and paid them off. You need to accumulate a little nest egg before you call them. Some of her cards had balances of $8.000. and above but they accepted as little as $1200 to do a complete payoff. They would rather have something rather than nothing. You could probably get your payoff down to $2.000 if you only owe $4.000
If you have more than one card, Let them all go into arrears but ONE. Keep one up to date and current and make attempts to get it paid down. You cannot exist without a card for emergencies. Pick the one that has the best interest rates. And always pay it one time or before. This means you will have to screen your calls unless you want to explain to them why you are not paying.
Also, any amount that the credit card companies “forgive” has to be reported as income on the return that year. So you still get punished some. Income…..from charged off interest.
You will have some bad credit during this time, but after it is over,you can go about repairing your credit.
Lots of luck
First things first. You need to know exactly how much you owe. Make a chart of all of your debt. List the debts by amount – lowest to highest amounts owed – down the left hand side of the page. In parenthesis under the name of the company and the amount owed, list the minimum amount due for each amount. Forget about the interest rates for the time being. Concentrate on the total amount due on each. (Suze Orman would advise against this method, but it worked for me and I had 10s of thousands owing.) Across the top of the page list the months of the year.
Now, take the amount you are able to pay each month and evenly divide it between each amount owed. What ever you have left after dividing put toward the lowest amount owed. Do this each month until the lowest amount is paid off. Then move the amount you were paying on the lowest total and apply it to the new lowest total. Do this until all of your bills are paid.
This method provides a couple of very positive aspects to your situation – you pay off more bills more quickly, and you pay off each bill with an increasing amount of money as others are knocked off the list. This is a very satisfying feeling when you have so much staring you in the face.
While you are in the process of paying off these bills you need to establish a new way of thinking about money. A new positive way. Make a list of absolutely everything you can do for free. You can borrow books from the library for free. You can borrow music and DVDs from the library for free. You can wash your own car for free. You can concentrate on bringing your home up to a superior state of cleanliness, thereby raising its market value, for free. You can plant a garden of vegetables for less than $10. Although it’s not techically free, it is still much less than what it would cost you to buy those same vegetables at the grocery store. Take the dog for a walk every day. It’s free. Visit with your friends. Get to know your family better. Have potluck dinners. Volunteer your time at a charity. Think about every little thing you can do for free. This takes your mind off of money being to only way in which you can spend your time. And it feels good to know that you have the ability to do these types of things without spending any more money.
You also may want to consider taking a part-time job while you are paying off your bills. This will provide some extra needed cash to add to your bills. Do no be tempted to splurge on extras with this money. You only defeat your purpose when you do this.
Another source of extra money is the yard sale. Gather together everything you don’t use/need, clean it up to brand new looking, and sell it.
And finally, if you haven’t already done so – drop the pay TV, cell phone (you really do not need it if you still have a phone at home), all of the techno gadgets, buy only fresh foods (packaged foods are hughly expensive and not good for you anyway), eat at home, take your lunch, buy items on sale only/with coupons, skip the take out drinks/coffee/etc. It is amazing what you can find to eliminate from your life when your life depends upon it.
I wish I could be paying off a 4500 dollar debt. It’s better than paying off on that’s 15k!
As far as my situation, all I can do is make the minimum payments. I have noticed the balances going down, but it’s true they take their time going down, but I do have other bills, and ain’t nobody supporting me but me, so I do what I can.
But I’ll tell you this..I’ve never ever been late making a payment in the 8 years or so I’ve had credit. That makes things worse when you pay late.
I’ve had to make sacrafices, and I still do, although I have slipped a few times. For the most part I’ve downgraded things: The cable, the home phone (I strictly use my cell as a contact phone), etc. I’m even trying to get a better paying job.
My thing is, unless I can pay my own money for things, I won’t buy it. I refuse to use credit. True something could come up where I have to use credit, but the key is I’m trying to discipline myself. It’s hard, but I’m trying.