Re: credit cards in default and CCCS--to Kim

Posted by Kim (63.202.81.237) on February 28, 2003 at 11:26:44:

In Reply to: Re: credit cards in default and CCCS--to Kim posted by mca on February 28, 2003 at 10:42:22:

They said that to us too - that we could not have other crds - then when one credit card (that we were going to be able to pay off in full) said they would re-instate the card if we took it out of CCCS, CCCS took it off without too many questions. I don't think we told CCCS we were going to reinstate the card, but it didn't seem to matter. We just said we were paying the debt off directly to the lender and so could they remove the account from their records and send us a letter to that effect.

We just did that one by one until we got all the cards off of CCCS (just last week, by the way!)

If you have really high balances after five years of paying I would defintiley sit down and spend a few hours getting a total understanding of what is going on. First, CCCS is not who you owe, so when it comes to wondering who you should belive about your true balances, believe your card companies.

Call them and get the actual, 100% for certain balances on each card and also the interest rate. There is a tricky formula for figuring out accured interest (and maybe someone here knows a web site with an interest calculator?) but you can get an idea (not exact, but close) by doing the following example:

Year One starting balance: $5,000
Interest rate: %10
Payment amount: $200
Year one: $500
Actual balance at year's end: $5500
Total payments for the year: $2400
Estimated balance at year one's end: $3100

For year 2, the starting balance would be $3100. In this model, you would come very close to paying the debt off in three years. Your balances and/or interest rate may be higher than this example (or your payment may be lower) and so it would be almost impossible to pay off in three years.

You cannot trust CCCS. You have to do the numbers yourself, trusting your credit card companies if you trust anyone, and then be active about working to pay less in the end by paying more (if you can) up front. As I said, had we stayed with CCCS, we would NOT have been able to pay off our debt in the time frame they told us. The scary thing was, it wasn't even close.

In my opinion, five years is a long time to be on CCCS and you should call the credit card companies and ask them if - now that you have shown yourself to be paying on time for so long - they have any other ideas or options for you that might save you money and time.

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