My name is Steve Bis and I have been helping people that are in debt with their unsecured credit card debts for a while and am aware of the negative consequences it has on their lives. When you have credit card debt and know that the situation is out of control, you should make a choice on what to do and make it quick. You do not want to put it off until it is too late. As plenty of you bye now already know is that the debt collectors are not polite when you call them with problems with billing. It’s pretty remarkable the way it works because when you initially get the card they are very polite people when you talk to them. Then if you call them to complain about a late or over limit penalty fee and try to have it , they might let you off one time a year, if you are lucky. When it comes down to it what choices do you have? It’s not like you can discontinue making payments on your rent/mortgage or other secured debts for you and your loved onesto make it with day to day living expenses.

The credit card companies made a whopping 17 billion dollars in penalty fees in 2006 and it will be much higher this year. Now I am pretty sure that it has happened to you, where you’ve gone and open your monthly credit card bill only to discover that your APR has more or less doubled in some cases tripled. It is tough enough trying to maintain payments with 10% or even the 7.9 % interest that they are charging on your credit cards. How are you suppose to deal with the higher payments now? It was dreadful enough to manage before the interest was raised. This is exactly why U.S. citizens are searching for other options such as credit card debt settlement vs. credit counseling, or bankruptcy. If you do not know much about these options then I will give you a little information on them.

Consumer Bankruptcy

Before 2005 bankruptcy was to be used for families who were experiencing serious financial hardships. Regrettably it was misused by way too many U.S. citizens who were attempting to evade paying their debts. They didn’t want to be accountable for their actions. The credit card companies were fed up with this so they lobbied to have the laws changed. It is now referred to as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection act of 2005. It would make it harder for most debtors to file for help. Bankruptcy should only be exercised as your very last choice after you have explored every alternative option. Also you should think of the consequences that might come back later down the road. You would have to find a lawyer, go to court and that could run you a lot of your hard earned income. There is also the issue of it being on your FICO history anywhere from 7 to 10 years. When you filling out any significant application or document you will always have to answer yes when asked the question about bankruptcy, so this does have a very negative long lasting effect on your credit.

Texas Consumer Credit Counseling

Everyway you look, either it is advertised on the radio or television, you will hear about debt consolidation credit counseling. A credit counseling company will try to get the creditors to reduce the APR on your credit accounts. You then make one monthly installment to the consumer credit counseling company and they then pay each one of your creditors for you. The downside to this method is even though they reduce the interest charge on your credit card accounts you could still pay back as much as 130% of what you actually owe.

This is because with this sort of plan you will still be paying back what you owe plus some of the interest for around possibly five years or more. Almost 50% of the consumers that are in credit counseling don’t finish the program for one reason or another. Another draw back to credit counseling is that if you have a money problem and are cannot make your monthly payment they will boot you off of the program without delay. They will also raise your interest back up and the creditors could keep you off for around one year and sometimes even longer. This might put you right back to where you began, if not in a worse situation.

Debt Settlement is usually the best possible solution to get out of a sticky debt mess

This is the avenue which can save you the largest amount of money. A good standing debt settlement company will save you at least 40% of what you currently owe. The 40% should include all of their charges. As with consumer credit counseling, you will hear a lot of TV and radio advertisements quite often. These companies are starting up all across America. Some of these companies try to make it seem like they have a magic bullet and are going to make all your debt vanish overnight.

There are even many companies that try to use religion to attain the trust of people. Whatever organization you choose it is your responsibility to do research on them. You can always begin with the BBB (Better Business bureau). You might be able to find out a lot about a company from them. If you discover that a company has only been in business for a little while and has a plethora of complaints against them, then you must avoid them. One more thing to look for is how long has the company been around. Some companies only survive a couple of years before they get terminated or get caught stealing people’s hard earned dollars. Then some of them only stay around to make as much money as they can and close down just to open up across townafternoon.

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