Best way to pay off my debts.....?

Question

this is my situation.Im 27 and I've accumulaterd about $15,000 (this includes late fees & finance charges) on 5 different cards,all credit cards. I could never afford to pay anything because of my low paying job.

Now I am getting paid more, so I can put aside a few hundred dollars a month to start paying them off but since there with different agencies i feel this might be difficult.

All these debts are now with collection agencies, its been exactly 2 years since I made my last payments on the credit cards, so they've been with the CA for about 1 year and a half. What is the best way for me to work this out? should i go to credit counseling and have them try to reduce my debt and be able to make one payment each month? should I try to contact the collection agencies and work with them? or perhaps contacting the credit card companies themselves and see if i can settle that way?

Thanks for in advance.

Answer 1

You need to work on fixing your credit. I would contact the collection agencies and tell them you want to work out a payment schedule. Telling them you are cooperating will go a long way.

Make sure you leave enough money each month to take care of your own needs so you don't acquire more debt.

Answer 2

First off if you had a low paying job and couldn''t pay your credit cards, what were you using them for? Secondly why did you need 5 credit cards? One major card, visa or mastercard is all anyone needs.

If you want to fix your situation...DO NOT use your credit cards, cut them up, give them to someone (a family member) to hold until you have paid them off so you are not tempted to use them and keep only one either a visa or mastercard.

Credit counselling is a very good option to try consolidating them into one payment, if this doesn't work you may want to look into a Consumer Proposal or Bankruptcy with a local Trustee(consumer proposal would be the better route)....use a reputable company for something like this i.e. BDO Dunwoody, Deloitte & Touche in Canada, or if you are in the US contact your local major accounting firms. You are going to have a very long haul re-establishing your credit rating as most collection agencies once reported to the credit bureaus do not remove themselves they drop off automatically after about 6 years. Until these collections are removed you are a credit risk and no company will extent you credit.

Answer 3

First - be aware that if the debts have gone to CA's that means that the original issuer of the card has charged off your debt in their accounting and sold the debt to a CA for a discount. Maybe 25 cents on the dollar or maybe less. The damage has already been done to your credit rating so don't spend a lot of time worrying about it.
The CA's want to make a profit on their purchase. You can negotiate a lower number. Don't pay any further interest on the charges. Consider a lump sum settlement if you can. Negotiate negotiate negotiate - make yourself as much a pain in the ass as the collector is. They can't add additional info to your credit report and they're obligated to accept what you can pay as a plan. They can only take you to court if you refuse to do anything at all.

Answer 4

www.consumercredit.com
By going to consumer credit counseling thay can consolidate your loans and renegotiate the terms. They will require you to get rid of your credit cards which is a good thing because then you will make progress. I paid off $22,000 in debt in four years. What a relief to not always be feeling guilty and avoiding creditors. Once we became debt free our credit score built up and now we have @ 800.
Its worth getting it taken care of now. You will be so glad you did.

Answer 5

Try a company that will consolidate all your bills. They may even be able to eliminate all interest charges! It is actually much cheaper to go through them than to go through the CC company. Good luck (..been there)

Answer 6

first pull your credit see what you can do your self its very easy if u want to pay off the bad debt call them to see if you can pay half of what u owe go to a bookstore get credit repair manual that will help trust me

Answer 7

consolidate your debts and pay one bill every month