Comments on: Things I’ve learned about credit card debt

By: Koblog

Koblog — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:20:07 +0000

Pay the balance in full every month.

Better yet, use a Discover card or Costco American Express. They pay you to use the card if you don’t carry a balance.

Costco AMEX downside: you have to spend your cashback reward at Costco. Discover gives it to you in cash.

By: Meryl Yourish

Meryl Yourish — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:11:34 +0000

I hope you can switch the debt to a different card. Go check with your bank to see about a debt consolidation loan. And don’t give up on calling the credit card company again and seeing if they’ll reconsider. Have you been paying on time since then?

Good luck.

By: ThomasD

ThomasD — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:56:40 +0000

I’ll agree with pretty much everything here. Although in my own experience the days of low rate (2.99-5.99), life-of-the-loan type offers ended a little less than a year ago (and I doubt it is specific to me, as my overall debt load has only declined during that same period.)

But yes, the card companies will go to great lengths to please if you have a solid credit rating and they think you have the resources available to settle up and cancel the account or move your debt elsewhere.

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:25:50 +0000

dont link autopayments for a credit card to your checking account. Fraud in the card will be automatically paid and anyone cleaning out you credit card will have access to your checking account. this is true if you electronically link any two accounts. BUT….use the online banking to pay your bills. I always had late fees and penalites until I signed up for on-line banking. Its so easy to pay bills that now I never put it off and the record keeping by the bank is just great. No this is not at ad. I haven’t had a late fee on my credit cards in ages and my credit score is now over 800 cause now I pay my bills in time.

And yes your advice about calling to lower rates, fees etc is spot on. One additional item. If your credit score is good, don’t be afraid to close an account if they won’t give you an inch. You would be suprised to see how fast they come around because they know you can always get another card elsewhere and, in the end, they really do want your business.

By: Ken Willis

Ken Willis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:25:15 +0000

There is one other thing that you might be able to do with a credit card company that will be difficult or well nigh impossible with any other creditor that is a subscriber to any of the three credit reporting companies (Equifax, Transunion, or Experian). If you make a payment more than 30 days late it will go on your credit history. You might be able to get the credit card company to remove that entry from your credit history. Clients of mine have gotten it done. My best advice is for them to talk to the credit card company themselves, and not for me or any other lawyer to do it. I have had several of them achieve success with this. Remember, you cannot threaten the credit card company in any way because they absolutely do not have to do it. You have to persuade them, and they are persuadable.

This is in contrast to every other creditor I have ever dealt with. Getting any relief at all from them on your credit report is usually a frustrating waste of time. Getting them to correct their own mistakes is just about as difficult. Most people think their state attorney general’s office will help them with getting mistakes removed from their credit report. That has certainly not been my experience trying to help clients. The federal laws on this are too much in favor of the credit agencies and creditors for state attorney generals to be of much help. If Democrats were really for the little guy they would change this now, and they never would have allowed it in the first place. The most recent federal legislation on credit card debt puts a burden on credit card companies without doing anything of substance to help debtors.

By: George S.

George S. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:22:54 +0000

I, too, have avoided late fees by calling the credit card company. In almost all cases, I had mailed the check before or on the due date. Once I could not pay onine overnight, but scheduled the payment for the next day, then called them the next day to make sure a late fee would not be applied. In one case where the bank refused to rescind the late fee over the phone (post-Lehman Brothers collapse), I was polite & then the next day went in person to the bank & got them to agree there to rescind the late fee. If you have a good history, you can get out of the late fees.

By: dpwiener

dpwiener — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:57:51 +0000

I want to emphasize that you have to ASK. On rare occasions I’ve forgotten a payment or sent in the wrong amount, so I’ve called up the bank to try to avoid the late fee and interest. I can explain the problem all I want, and the service representative will sympathize with me, but the representative usually has instructions not to volunteer anything. You have to explicitly say “Is there anything you can do about it?” or words to that effect, before the representative will agree to reverse the fee and interest.

By: scott

scott — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:32:28 +0000

yeah, well, i tried all that with bank of you-know-who, and, nothin’ doin. i called and asked in advance for 3 extra days to pay a bill (i’ve never missed a payment), and they lowered my avail credit right there on the spot, and wouldn’t budge on my first late payment, sending my APR from 10% to 25%.

good luck.

By: sabbahillel

sabbahillel — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:24:17 +0000

Originally, that was the normal procedure here in the U.S., however, the credit card companies managed to get a law passed making it illegal to “discriminate” against credit card user’s by charging them a higher price. Instead of lowering the prices for everyone, cash customers got charged the higher price.

By: Tzvi

Tzvi — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:51:27 +0000

I may be the a credit card company’s worst customer. I pay the full amount just before the due date at the bank. It is only a short walk to the same shopping centre where I would have to buy stamps anyway.

In addition to the interest charged, there is a charge to the merchant. One very large chain here in Canada, specializing in automotive goods, does provide a small discount to customers paying by credit card or cash, but in an indirect way. For some merchants they may be tempted to discount in return for cash.