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Is this credit counseling scam worth it?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:45:18 -0800

DebtFilter: I've been paying a credit counseling company (law firm, actually) $60 a month for the past three years to make my minimum payments to the credit card companies I owe. They lowered my annual interest rate to an average of 10% and threaten that if I cancel their service, my interest rates will reset. Is that true? I owe about $16,000 (as of today) on four different credit cards and my monthly payments are ~$700. I signed up for the credit counseling company because I had panicked about making my payments and needed to take action. It appeared legitimate at the time, but I didn't really do any research before I solicited their services. They have since been charging me, in addition to the initial $600 fee, monthly fees of $60 to transfer money from my account to my credit card companies (I can still make my payments to the banks directly; I've regained all online access to my accounts, etc.). They provide no other service.

If I took out a personal line of credit to consolidate my debts, I'd still pay more than the current 10% APR, so I think I'm getting a decent deal: but I could make the payments myself, on time, and I'd save a good amount of money.

I called a couple of my creditors to ask them if I would get to keep my current low interest rate, but got very evasive answers (one bank couldn't answer, another told me they'd only talk to the lawyer who currently handles my account).

When I called the credit counseling company to ask what would happen if I canceled their services, they became outright threatening, told me that I'd be a pretty difficult process to cancel their service (signing up took a day and an electronic signature!), and told me the interest rates would reset to the credit card defaults (upward of 25% APR, I think).

Do you have any experience with this situation? I finally have enough time to deal with this: what would you advise me to do?

The credit card counseling agency is called Coastal Credit Solutions; the law firm they signed me up for is Laura Hess Kennedy, currently disbarred: they recently lost a class action suit due to debt settlement fraud (I received a whole lot of mail regarding that, but I'm not a client of "debt settlement" services; they just lowered my interest rate but not my debt amounts or minimum payments).

Software for playing the "rotate that credit card balance to the low APR offer" game

GenTso — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:27:33 -0800

My googlefoo is failing me: Hasn't anyone written a program that helps you figure out the best strategy for playing the "rotate credit card balances from one card to the next to take advantage of low APR offers" game? (You know the offers - you get maybe 0% or 1.99% APR for 6 months, but a fee of 3% of the transfer amount, maxing out at $75, etc. Add to that the fact that I have a good number of cards, and suddenly the possibilities of what to move where/when can quickly become a tricky matter to manage.)

Is this my personal bailout for the credit industry?

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:24:53 -0800

Yesterday, I paid off Citibank for the last time. Today, I logged in to verify it had posted, and noticed my interest rate had jumped 5.5%. Has my new regime of frugality displeased the overlords? (Anon because I know some of you and am embarrassed about my money issues.) Last year when I got serious about my consumer debt, I used Citi's low-APR balance transfer offers to consolidate all my credit card debt. The total of transfers and existing Citi debt gave me a balance in the mid-$20K; the transfer APR was 2%, and the purchase/existing APR was 13.3%.

The balance transfer period is about to end, so I decided to clean the dogs out of my investment account and get out of debt in one easy payment. Yesterday was the last day of my statement period; I paid the current balance in full. When I logged in today, the current balance was only the interest charge on the previous period, so I paid it off too. Then I noticed that my APR had jumped to 18.8% overnight!

I've seen a number of stories about Citi jumping people's rates inexplicably since the current crisis started. I know that, by not using my credit, I am less useful to Citibank. Still, I wasn't expecting a hike back to where I was in my less creditworthy days. Are they betting that I will be unable to resist using my card again and that I didn't notice the boost? Is the hike coincidental to the zero balance, making my ragefest at Vikram Pandit meaningless?

Help with student loan

Black_Umbrella — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:17:05 -0800

I am looking for the best general student loan company. What are your experienes with specific student loan companies? So I have managed to pay for the first 4 years of my 5 year program. But now I am completely broke so I need a student loan.

I have talked to a financial officer at my school who more or less said "most are good". What I would like from the hive are some of your experiences with specific loan providers.

Perhaps you may even know the "best of the best" loan providers if you have recently spent time researching this.

My permenent address is considered to be Maryland and my school is located in New Jersey.

I already recieve federal perkins and direct loans.

Misc. Information:
I NEED the loan to cover everything...i.e.: food, housing, books, tuition, etc

I just put myself into credit card debt by flying back to my school from Australia (study abroad). Can I increase my loan to pay off this debt and consolidate it under a better APR?

Am I allowed to increase my loan by a few grand, 3K - 4K, for my own personal use during my last year? Most will be spent on drinks, concerts and the occasional weekend trip - so not exactly a school expense, just a little NECESSARY relaxation.

It's got an awesome appetite: Tyrannosaurus Debt

johnofjack — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:05:23 -0800

How do you figure out daily interest from an APR on student loans due monthly? I have about 100k USD in student loan debt, at a fixed APR of 5.75%. I wanted to work out what the monthly rate was, but my debt holder tells me that the interest is actually calculated daily, though the payments are due monthly. Then they sent me twenty pages of amortization tables, I suppose imagining that it would help me somehow. Aside from seeing that 75-80% of each month's payment goes to interest before any of it goes to principal, the tables don't help me.

I accrue and pay off a small amount of credit card debt each month, mostly in grocery bills. This is deliberate, since it's a monthly expense I'd have anyway, and paying by credit instead of debit is (I think) at least a slight help to my credit score.

I have no other debt.

I can see conceptually that paying as much extra as possible as soon as possible is best for reducing the total amount paid on this debt.

What I'd like is to work all of this out into a big spreadsheet so that I can see the actual final result of any extra payments made.

How do I do this? I feel like maybe I'm venturing into the realm of deep magic.

I've poked around in the archives here and not found another question asking this; if I've missed it, a pointer would be great.

Fighting the Evil Credit Card companies

tuxster — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:42:02 -0800

My credit card company just pulled a quick one on me. Despite my best efforts to resolve the situation with their customer service, I am going nowhere. What should be my next step? In August 2004, I applied to a credit card online, through one of the well-known financial organizations. The offer I responded to was a 12 month 0% APR for balance transfers. The small text said that if I don't qualify for this offer, I might get an alternate offer of same rate for only 3 months, but I didn't think too much of it since I have a great credit history (FICO score of 775 with no late payments, no missed payments, etc. - except a new mortgage back in May 2004). So, I applied online and asked them to process a balance transfer from another credit card.

A couple weeks later I received a letter that says, "congratulations you've been accepted" and went on to say what my credit limit was and that my balance transfer was in process. Since the credit limit was lower than my balance transfer request, they said only an amount upto my limit would be processed. Nothing else. A week later, I received my welcome package which included my credit card, a benefits guide, and a generic terms and conditions legal statement. However, no new rate sheet that says what the APRs are, etc.

So I proceeded to make my monthly minimum payments and put a note on my calendar for 11.5 months to make sure I pay off the balance.

A few weeks ago, when I was doing my taxes, I had a chance to look over some of the past statements, and suddently noticed that they have been adding finance charges since November.

I called the customer service line. They told me that I was only accepted for the "alternate offer" which gave me only 3 months of 0% APR and not the original 12 months. They also told me since this alternate offer was included in the small text of the original application, they had no responsibility to inform me which offer I had been accepted under. After talking with a number of reps and supervisors, I, of course, got a number of different responses. A couple said they didn't have to let me know, another couple said it would have been in the acceptance letter, a fifth said I would have to had signed a statement accepting the new conditions, a sixth and a seventh said the conditions would have been in my welcome package. Of course, neither the acceptance letter nor the welcome package had anything in it, and I certainly didn't sign anything. One of the ladies (the one that said it should have been in the acceptance letter) told me that I should write to their "research dept.". So I did.

The research department essentially responded last week and told me that they don't care. They essentially didn't say anything other than the fact that that's the offer I was accepted under and thus I was responsible for the finance charges.

I have already transferred all my balance out (except for the disputed interest charges, which I left in the account). I know that I can pursue with BBB, FTC, State Attorney's Office, Small Claims Court, or Arbitration, etc., but will any of these get me anything? Is it worth my time or shall I just call the company evil, pay up the interest charges, and take my business elsewhere (I also have another card with them that I've been using for 10 years, so I would cancel that one too)?

If I should pursue, what is the best strategy? Do I pay off the disputed charges (since they continue to compound interest), or leave them there? Where do I send my complaint first? It's essentially a "I said, you said" situation. They are going to claim they sent me the new rates in the welcome envelope (the highest level supervisor I spoke to insisted that they would have sent it, so that will probably be their official line). I know I didn't get it (I'm pretty organized when it comes to filing things), but how do I prove I didn't get it?

Sorry for the long message, but I wanted to explain everything to make sure I get the best advice. Thanks in advance for all the advice.

How do I select a new credit card?

waldo — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:11:31 -0800

I have a credit card from a company that I quite like, but they've slowly been raising my APR. Every year, I get a notice that it's gone up a few more points. (Despite that I've got a great credit rating.) Last week, when I got the notice about the increase to 18.9%, that was the final straw. There are a bajillion credit cards out there, and the choices are overwhelming. How do I select a new credit card?