http://www.ukloansreferral.com/personal-loans/a-bad-credit-personal-l…

Answer: How about this…the next time you scam someone out of their life savings or steal some 5 year old kids identity, how about using a little of that money to invest in a frigging SPELL CHECKER?

Answer: I hate ‘em. They tend to pick on people who don’t have very good credit or at least don’t have good credit awareness. Their rates are outrageous! A personal loan, in Cincinnati, even with collateral, would run you 28.8 percent. And they use the Rule of 78 to calculate pay-off balances so paying it off early wouldn’t save you anything. (Well, not much anyway.)

My guess is they treat all other loans the same way. I’d rather deal with a company who doesn’t prey on the weak or ignorant.

By the way, when I graduated high school, a friend bought a bunch of furniture and her loan went through Norwest. Not only did she get stuck with a high-interest, Rule of 78 loan, but they call her almost every week telling her she is now eligible for an additional $2,500 or $5,000, or $10,000 personal cash loan. Since I found out about them, I’ve warned her not to accept the money. Credit illiterate people would probably jump at the money.

I owe about $15,000 (credit cards and 1 personal bank loan).

I’ve no mortage (house purchased for $217,000.00 in September of 1999) and recently paid cash for my car ($20,570.85 after a trade-in allowance of $3,256.00).

I’m considering re-financing my personal loan (about $3,000 o/s) and paying everything off. I’ll keep one credit card for emergencies (and get the limit cut back to $1,000.00), get rid of all my department store cards, include enough in my new loan to pay cash for all X-Mas gifts then start fresh and really get my finances in order.

(I’m single – separated for 11 years, actually – and supporting a 16 year old son. My annual salary is approx. $50,000).

Thoughts/advice/words of wisdom, please.

Answer: If you had a $100,000 mortgage most reasonable people wouldn’t consider that you were over your head in debt. I’d think most people would say you’re in pretty good financial shape, having a total indebtedness of only $15,000. Presumably, besides what you’ve told us, you have some savings, a retirement plan, a 401-k, some investments, some assets of some kind in addition to the house and car.

Pay off the personal loan and the cards and you’re as completely in the clear as anyone could hope to be.

If it’s the loans that bother you, borrowing *more* for holiday shopping isn’t going to make you feel better. Contrary to what you say, you wouldn’t be paying “cash”, you’d still be taking out a loan, it just wouldn’t be on a credit card. If you want to be completely debt free, don’t borrow more and pay off the debt you have. Rolling high interest debt over into low interest debt can be worthwhile – corporations and governments do it all the time. It sounds like you have your priorities in order though. Some people may have used the extra money for vacations, cars, furniture or other things that depreciate. It also sounds like you know how to save – it takes discipline to save for a car for 6 years. I wish I had started saving when I stopped my own car payments 10 years ago – even a paltry monthly amount would have made a difference by now.

I think shopping should be like eating. If someone wanted to lose weight, the best way to get & keep a goal is to exercise and eat healthy, NOT to just stop eating carbs, or chocolate, or whatever else people do when they restrict themselves. If you enjoy shopping, great. Do more window shopping and less of coming home with stuff. Make it a point to look around for a similar item & see if you can find a better price (if you leave the store w/out something that was an eyecatcher, it will most likely be there the next week).

I found that I really cut my impulse catalog buys by marking the page and then putting in a folder called ‘catalogs’. (I still feel stupid doing this – as if such a trivial item warrants space in my filing cabinet!). Every once in a while I check it out and sometimes have said “what? THAT hideous thing!” It’s funny how desires can change like that.

Have patience, try to pay off just a little more than you think you can – even $5 or $10 more is something towards that CC balance. There’s nothing wrong with transferring the balance to a lower-interest cc but do all the math: when does the introductory offer expire? What is the interest rate after that? Are there any fees involved?

It sounds like you’ve been through some rough times, and have pulled out of it. Congrats on leaving an abusive marriage – that can be enourmously difficult. I’m sorry to hear about the death in your family, and I’m glad that you’re able to honor them by putting the money into a good investment.

Answer: Getting a personal loan and being accepted for it will be reflected on yout credit history. What it will do to your credit score … I don’t know, it depends on what kind of score you have now, I guess? You may need some expert advice before you do anything, but even expert advice is just that… another person’s opinion, not realy knowing your particularly financial history with your debts. One thing to keep in consideration, is a loan will only be a trade off for one set off debts to another and what got you into credit card debt is a personal issue you may look at changing. If you choose to “consolidate” which is what you are doing with even a personal loan (I guess from your bank) stop using the credit cards by getting rid of them, (except for one and don’t use it) while you are paying off the loan. I for one did not get loans, consolidate or try debt negotiating or anything, I made a disciplined plan to pay off all the credit card debts with a system much like a the snowball plan. It actually become fun after awhile to see each one shrinking away.

Good luck

See reason i am here and reason i ask is i have an excessive amount of credit card debt. I budget monthly i only buy what i need. I spend zero on myself.

And budget is tight, and i don’t know how to make it tighter.

Thought about bankruptcy i don’t think they’d let me with new laws.

Credit card counseling perhaps.

Don’t know what to do what do i do? My income has went down at work and i will possibly not make budget. As of now i have always made my debt payments and my credit is good except for the fact i have lots of debt. How do i not be a victim of the credit cards cause i know i miss one payment they’ll have me for life.

And no i haven’t used my card in a year and a half and about 90 percent of my payments have went toward interest, and i am really stressing.

Answer: You talk alot about how you know all about finance and budgeting. There are always things we don’t know that someone else has found out from experience. I am curious also as to how you feel you got into this credit card situation; knowledge of finance doesn’t mean we understand the emotional underpinnings of spending issues. (And I’ve been there, done that.) Also, how much debt do you have? As Suze Orman would say, you cannot be ashamed to say the number out loud. Own it…as a first step.

Be careful with credit counseling as there are a lot of bogus companies out there. There are free services that you can avail of and some of the top “get out of debt” books will advise on who to trust and who to avoid. Don’t forget that one of the best things you can do, especially if your credit is good, as you say, is to personally call up each of your credit card companies, tell them you are committed to paying your debt but that you would appreciate their working with you over the next year to keep your minimum payments as low as possible while you are addressing increasing your income and lowering your expenses. Say you do not want to file bankruptcy, but need them to team with you to get the debt resolved. Ask for a supervisor if the customer rep says they can’t do anything.

Then for resources, Dave Ramsey “Total Money Makeover” is one good source for reading with worksheets and tips. Additionally, a great resource is “Your Money or Your Life” which also comes with great worksheets and has study groups formed around the country. Check out the Simple Living Network at http://www.simpleliving.net/default.asp for a database of groups to join.

Ramsey and most others would say for someone in your situation who claims to have cut everything to the bone (“I spend zero on myself.”) except cable and internet (“my entertainment”) would first be to: 1) cut cable and internet! I know that sounds harsh at first to us wired folks. At least you could give up the cable and find the cheapest source of dialup around. There are many more forms of entertainment that are free and much better for you–mind and body. If your cable is $35/month, that is $35 each month yo could be using to pay a little over the minimum on each credit card. That’s $ $420/year! Additionally, internet is free at libraries. And remember, even if you pay only $5 over minimum payment, that can make the difference in the credit card companies raising your minimum or not. Worked for me!

Do you have a cell phone *and* a landline? What do you pay each month in cell phone charges? Could you reduce it by calling less and using a prepaid service like TracFone only for emergencies? I paid a total of $26, and I have 6 months of service and 300 minutes of airtime. Do you brown bag it to work? Or do you still buy a Starbucks every morning or several beers at the bar each evening? Remember the latte factor! Do you take the bus and drive your car less? For grocery shopping, do you consciously watch the sales at your supermarkets.

If you truly have designed a very strict budget, the only other source to reduce your debt is to increase your income…taking a second job, a part-time job, or creating a stream of income from at-home work. Are you skilled in some trade that you could use on weekends or in evenings, even for a few hours? Remember, the 2nd job wouldn’t have to last forever…and it could even lead to a better paying job than your current one.

Share some examples from your situation and I’m sure many of us can help with some ideas. I know it sounds as if you are depriving yourself so much. We in America really don’t know how to be frugal and live simply without a lot of conscious effort. We have so much. But you are only 27! If you make a concerted effort for three years (depending on your debt), you can be debt-free by the time you are 30! Think how great that would feel to begin the next phase of your life feeling such freedom.

You can do it! I’ve known people who’ve gone from over $225,000 debt to buying their home and cars for cash!! It is not an insurmountable problem! Keep the faith! (And if you have a faith, praying for some guidance and strength is also a great help!)

This wasn’t a pre-arranged loan, so an interest rate was never established. (Ordinarily interest wouldn’t be an issue within family, but these two don’t get along very well.) We’re trying to figure out what the fairest interest rate would be.

Some people are saying savings account interest rate, which is awfully low. Others say that the rate should be the same as that given by the fund the “borrower” has been keeping money in. Any ideas?

Answer: I’d expect 6% per year (1/2% / mo on the unpaid balance) – easy to figure & a good balance vs. money market rates, CDs, etc. It’s about what mortgage rate money / car load money has been – the money could have been used to pay down mortgage or perhaps car loan debt. I doubt that many would hold $10k in a savings account. Beats me how you can get a loan, even from a family member, without “arranging” it somehow. It’s no wonder the two parties don’t get along, with $10,000 between them. It seems to me the fairest interest rate would be whatever the going rate was on the day the money was borrowed. Family members usually loan each other money to give each other a break – otherwise the borrower could just go to a bank and take out a loan – so that percentage should perhaps be somewhat reduced.

What the borrower earned on it is irrelevant (suppose the money had been invested poorly, and the investment lost money instead of earning it – should the debt, or the interest on it, be reduced accordingly?).

However, if this has been outstanding for five years, the lender will probably be lucky to get the principal back. If you’re not one of the parties directly involved, you’d be well advised to keep out of it if at all possible – whatever your two cents might be, you’ll end up offending and possibly permanently alienating one or the other.

Answer: I missed the show but your comment “whether they had big SUV payments” reminded me of a link I found while exploring the website of somebody who posts here regularly. The whole thing is about middle class people begging online. Looks like this past October, when the woman who created the “SaveKaryn.com” website was on People’s magazine cover and became a celebrity Internet beggar, a bunch of people decided to follow her lead, but while Karyn, the original online beggar, managed to pay off her 20K credit card debt in just a few months with the money people donated to her, her imitators aren’t collecting much dough.

One of the stories I read really bothers me. Below I’m copying the “bills” page from their website. I took the time to read all the other pages and I just can’t understand why these people can’t get their act together. They talk about the bad decisions they “made” but it seems to me that they are *still* making very bad decisions. And I don’t know what to do. My first reaction was to send them some money but then, why aren’t other people sending them any money? Could the whole thing be a scam?

In 1996 after graduation, I consolidated my student loans, and one credit card (with school expenses – equipment essential to my education) under a private company (Merlin-Plato). The original amount was around $35,000. To make a long story short, I have paid (conservatively) around $20,000 on the entire loan, but still have $30,000 remaining. I realized much too late that I made a horrible mistake, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I am paying an obscene 6-6.5% above prime, and I shall never be able to pay this loan off at the current rate. I have had only one 6 month forbearance due to financial difficulty, but diligently made payments of $300-375.00/mo every other time, even while dirt poor.

I know now if I had kept the original loans, or used a government consolidation program (I was not aware of this at the time!), I would have half of this amount paid off, and it’s made me quite depressed (part of the reason I am under psychiatric care/meds). I am now contemplating Chapter 13. Yes, I am ashamed of having to to this, and actually looked forward to paying off my student loans, to prove I can indeed do this, and to show that non-trust fund kids have a fighting chance of financing a good school. I wish I had another choice, but everyone I’ve spoken to is stumped. My mom has even tried to take out a second mortgage to pay the loan, and I would have paid her, but the rates were too high (I cried when she told me this). I worked with an organization called MyVesta.org, and they couldn’t negotiate a rate reduction with the company. I’m at the end of the rope.

There was also an incident that pushed me over the edge; a collections person mistakenly called my mom (the cosigner) when my loan was not in collections. He then proceeded to insult and patronize her. I did call back and raise hell, but received no formal apology. I don’t know what else to do. As of now, I’m told my loan is no longer a student loan, but “private.” Obviously, it will be a cold day in Hell before I can refinance this with an unsecured loan (I live in New York City, so of course I don’t own a car or home). I know I can’t be the only one in this situation, but I know of no one who consolidated with this company after graduation, so I have no one with which to compare notes.

I would really rather not have to file Chapter 13, and heartily welcome any advice or similar stories. Another note: I also have a hefty IRS debt, left over from a few years back when I had a choice of either paying the IRS or the loan company. I am working from home at this time, so I do have time and energy for any “creative” solutions.

Answer: Why was the collection person calling your mother? Check out the federal fair debt collections act. Keep track of the name, date, time and content of each collection effort. Write the company and tell them not to contact your mother any more. Debt collection people are prohibited from contacting relatives, employers, etc. to discuss your debt with them.

It may be that the consolidated loan is dischargeable in bankruptcy, but your student loan probably was not, except if a considerable time goes by or in the case of hardship.

Older loans are sometimes sold to companies who specialize in people who have defaulted. These companies often accept a lesser amount in full payment, but be very very careful and do this only through an attorney or they could rip you off again.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy may be a good idea in this stage of your life and the debt, if you do not own anything above the exempted assets. If you do not have a car or a house, you may just be able to discharge these debts without further payment. Again consult a bankruptcy attorney with a list of your assets and debts. Many bankruptcy attorneys give free initial consultations.

Your credit appears to be shot anyway, so a concern regarding what bankruptcy would do to your credit really is not a big consideration.

Keep in mind that trying to pay these debts after you have defaulted does not help your credit ratings. If you keep trying to pay and drag it along for a few more years, that just means that your credit report will show years of bad credit. Bankruptcy brings all the bad credit reports to an end at a specific date and after that you can do things to restore your credit ratings.

well the dealership were careless (par for the course there) and didnt put their name on the title. so now i have a clean title.

i’ve been getting letters from a third party saying that they represent the bank and asking me to please go back to the dealer and have them fix the error.

my question is….do i have to? i mean i plan on paying the loan as i make good on all my obligations…but what can the bank do in this case?

an accountant friend of mine said, it was no big deal all that happened was that i got a personal loan at car loan rates…(this was a used car btw.)

any guidance is greatly appreciated!!

Answer: You’re being an asshole, plain and simple. If a bank was trying to pull something like that on you, you’d be crying bloody murder. You have a contract with the bank under which they have an interest in your car. The fact that their name is not on the title means that you can go ahead and sell the car to anybody without their knowledge. This means they have a high risk exposure, because their loan is now essentially unsecured. If you refuse to comply, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bank reposes your car.

How hard is it to go to DMV and get this matter straightened out instead of risking a serious complication? Well, yes, he is being a twit, but they can’t repo the car, since they don’t have a recorded lien or other interest in it. What they CAN do in most cases is call the note due, due to failure to perform on the borrowers part. In one of the 3-point type pages he signed, he probably agreed to all sorts of conditions about abiding by the terms of the loan, and acknowledging the bank had the right to kill the loan, agreeing to pay the legal fees if the bank had to sue, etc.

A very stupid thing to risk a (allegedly) good credit rating over, IMHO. OP should get a note on letterhead from dealer and bank, explaining the circumstances of the error, and take those and the title down to the DMV, and get the lien recorded. They might even waive the fee for the replacement title, since they deal with that dealer and that bank on a regular basis.

Standard disclaimer- IANAL (or a loan officer)- but I a notary for many years in a previous state, and had to stamp many title transfers and attached affidavits of wierdness attached to the deals. You don’t do that w/o learning a few things.

It won’t matter anyway, with those kind of ethics you’ll always hate your job and your life. Grow up, get some psychiatric help or you’ll end up eating a bullet before your fifty due to all the anger that you obviously don’t know how to deal with. —Windows excuse #38 as applied to cars: You have a door ding, no wonder it won’t start! Fixing computers in Columbia Missouri or thereabouts.

Answer: I think you should see a different bankruptcy lawyer. I live in Louisiana. Some close friends declared bankruptcy for medical reasons. They were able to keep their cars and their house by “affirming” those debts. Their medical bills and credit card bills, which were in the five figures but I’m forgetting the exact amount, I’m thinking about $50,000, were completely discharged. Louisiana is a homestead state. They are not trying to get people’s houses or retirement plans, and they also allow for each working adult to have an operating vehicle so they don’t lose their job.

I wouldn’t worry about the bill in the Senate. There is a “rider” on the bill, which prevents anti-abortion terrorists from declaring bankruptcy when they are sued by people they threaten or assault (or by the families of people they kill). This “rider” creates enough uproar from year to year to keep the bankruptcy bill from being passed.

If I was making $50,000 a year, I sure wouldn’t have any trouble paying a $7000 credit card bill. I am not entirely sure what you are doing wrong but I hope I can get a dialogue going with some other low income posters like myself. Maybe you can read some of our discussions to get ideas of how to cut costs to the bone.