Credit card settlement, LEGIT?

My mom has a current debt balance in Bank of America of around ,300. They sent my mother a letter for a settlement balance of 00, with a saving of approximately 00. She will have to make fixed payments for the next couple of months.

The disclaimer on the bottom of the letter states: "Following your verbal acceptance of this offer and upon receipt of all agreed to payments your account will be considered settles, and you will not be obligated to pay the remaining balance.

My question is: Should we go with this settlement, assuming we can make the payments? Is this a safe deal/settlement? Can they throw some other curveballs at us?

Does anyone else know more about these settlement plans, or can shed any light on this?

Thanks for your input.
Her account has already defaulted. What she is worrying about is the addition to her income, since I relied on financial aid since I’m a college student this year, she is wondering what the impact would be, since we have mortgage payments and whatnot

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,

How do debt management companies help?

I’m currently in a situation where I’ve collected more debt than I can manage and the interest payments are staggering.
Besides telling me how I can better spend my money, I’m wondering how a debt management company could help me?
I own a house. Would they somehow tie the debt into my mortgage payments?
Basically – what can they do for me that the bank can’t?


Related Blogs

Tags:, , ,

How do debt management companies help?

I’m currently in a situation where I’ve collected more debt than I can manage and the interest payments are staggering.
Besides telling me how I can better spend my money, I’m wondering how a debt management company could help me?
I own a house. Would they somehow tie the debt into my mortgage payments?
Basically – what can they do for me that the bank can’t?
Boss – why not spam less serious questions?


Related Blogs

Tags:, , , ,

Short sale? Foreclosure? Lease purchase? Pro help needed pls!?

We bought house (a foreclosure) in 2005 for 5K. Our loan ppl said our payments would be 00/mth. We didn’t know about taxes and ins. Or the 2nd mortgage. Payments = 00 a month.

We are self employed. 6 months later I refinanced the 2nd for repairs and business exp. Now we owe 0K – 0 on first & 100 on 2nd. Things did not continue to go well. We were loosing up to K a month sometimes, and getting by on credit cards!

So last year we put the house up for sale and guess what? Yup it still hasn’t sold. We were in credit card debt of K then. We’re in for K of cc debt now. And out of credit.

We are making enough to pay the mortgages, biz exp and groceries (4200 mth). Not enough to pay the credit cards (1200 mth). I’m at 30 days late with 8 cc’s now. We have no savings; some mths we may have enough to pay a debt reduction firm, but I can’t be sure.

If we lease purchase the house, that will give us money to move away and rent a cheaper house.
I just don’t know how many more months we can hold on. I don’t want to do bankruptcy.

Is there a way to do short sale without ending up with a 1099?

What about foreclosure? I really don’t want to do that but anyone have advice for me?

We’re making as much money as we can to pay our bills; the economy is hurting all small businesses. I never intended to have to use a debt reduction firm, this is very hard. The credit card companies won’t work with us until we’re 60-90 days over they say. I can’t get anyone that speaks good english on the phone at our 2nd mortgage company (Suntrust) and 1st (Countrywide) says they can’t do anything to help, not even deed in lieu.

There is no extra money for anything right now; this month we had to pay 0 to dentist for one of our kids. We have no health insurance. That’s why we couldn’t pay our cc’s this month.

Please don’t roast me; we need help from people smarter than us pls. Thanks.
This was our first house purchase, sorry we were green and didn’t know there would be extra taxes and insurance, esp at an extra 0 a month. Mortgage people have been getting bad press for not fully disclosing details. Sorry if we were one of the suckers.

We have no family other than ourselves -both sides. That sucks.

Due to debt to income ratio, countrywide will not refinance, nor will any other companies. I’ve tried.

Please note – we recognised we had a problem last year and tried to be proactive and sell the house so we could pay our debts. Buying too much house was a huge mistake.

I’m just asking for help. Thanks
State = Georgia


Related Blogs

  • ULV: Japan’s Newest Electric Car Goes On Sale

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How do I talk to my wife about finances?

My wife and I each make about ,000 a year, we both have credit card debt and student loans. we bought a house last year, so mortgage payments too, and we have two boys (12 & 15)

So far we have been ok, but I don’t feel we are getting ahead with our debt reduction. The house market is starting to go down, and interest rates will go up.

Every time I suggest we make a budget and cut some luxuries (like cable TV) she gets mad and accuses me of not trusting her with our banking. Now she also has her mind set on buying a new washer/dryer! the set we have are old (about 15 years) and normal capacity, but they WORK. She insists that we need new, larger capacity ones.

I will probably get a bonus for Xmas, and she wants to use it for the washer/dryer.

We’ve already borrowed money from her parents twice, and I can’t ask my parents for any. What we NEED is a budget, but she won’t talk about it!

What do i do? I thought about asking her parents to intervene, but that might make it worse.


Related Blogs

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Any ideas as of best way to deal with mortgage in a vacant house?

Getting rid of my mortgage payment without hurting the credit that much?
"What would you do in my situation?"

I bought a house in 2005 for 160K, fully financed.

I bought a car few months later for 20K (my fully paid one broke and I needed a new one which represented more monthly payments out of pocket). Additionally I paid for the landscape, gutters, electrical outlets and central air conditioning after I purchased the house, a total of 10K from my pocket that made me put more debt on the credit cards.

So, I started with a mortgage payment of 1K per month, then increased credit card payments while doing all the improvements in the house, and then got a car loan, so in mid 2007 I needed to refinance, and out of the refinancing I paid the credit cards and the car all on escrow without having a penny coming to my pocket . My house got appreciated for 270K at the time, and I took a loan for 190K (for what I pay ,200 monthly).

In 2008 moved to another state, my house is vacant and for sale for some months now, if an appraiser comes will appraise it for 210K, although no buyer is ready for more than 195K and obviously I won’t be able to pay the realtor commissions if I sell at that price considering I owe 190K and that the commissions are of 6% on top of that. My contract anyways is about to expire. I am current in all the mortgage payments.

Since renting in one state and paying mortgage, gardener, insurance, services in the other is becoming quite a burden, I was looking into options, such as a Short Sale. I know that some debt relief was approved later but I don’t find anything on the IRS website, all I find is what was passed in 2007/ I would like to know which options I have. I really do not care about my empty/vacant house, I care about my credit. If I rent it I will get about 0 a month (this is after paying the property manager fees, the house is located on the hardest hit by the bubble burst city of the country, so there are not any more movers in line to buy/rent), so I need suggestions as of what could I do. For instance, is there any possible negotiation with the bank to stop the payments for 6 months? This way it will let me try to sell by owner with the help of some local friends.

Both states are non-recourse states. I do not think buying will be a good option at this time, I do not know how the taxes will affect my situation, I just need some ideas.

How do I short sale the house? and then am I responsible for paying for the taxes and how is that calculated (you have all my numbers there). Does the appraisal value at the time of sale play any role on the taxes or forgiveness of taxes?

Please advise,

Thank you!


Related Blogs

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting rid of my mortgage payment without hurting the credit that much?

"What would you do in my situation?"

I bought a house in 2005 for 160K, fully financed.

I bought a car few months later for 20K (my fully paid one broke and I needed a new one which represented more monthly payments out of pocket). Additionally I paid for the landscape, gutters, electrical outlets and central air conditioning after I purchased the house, a total of 10K from my pocket that made me put more debt on the credit cards.

So, I started with a mortgage payment of 1K per month, then increased credit card payments while doing all the improvements in the house, and then got a car loan, so in mid 2007 I needed to refinance, and out of the refinancing I paid the credit cards and the car all on escrow without having a penny coming to my pocket . My house got appreciated for 270K at the time, and I took a loan for 190K (for what I pay ,200 monthly).

In 2008 moved to another state, my house is vacant and for sale for some months now, if an appraiser comes will appraise it for 210K, although no buyer is ready for more than 195K and obviously I won’t be able to pay the realtor commissions if I sell at that price considering I owe 190K and that the commissions are of 6% on top of that. My contract anyways is about to expire. I am current in all the mortgage payments.

Since renting in one state and paying mortgage, gardener, insurance, services in the other is becoming quite a burden, I was looking into options, such as a Short Sale. I know that some debt relief was approved later but I don’t find anything on the IRS website, all I find is what was passed in 2007/ I would like to know which options I have. I really do not care about my empty/vacant house, I care about my credit. If I rent it I will get about 0 a month, so I need suggestions as of what could I do. For instance, is there any possible negotiation with the bank to stop the payments for 6 months? This way it will let me try to sell by owner with the help of some local friends.

Both states are non-recourse states. I do not think buying will be a good option at this time, I do not know how the taxes will affect my situation, I just need some ideas.

How do I short sale the house? and then am I responsible for paying for the taxes and how is that calculated (you have all my numbers there). Does the appraisal value at the time of sale play any role on the taxes or forgiveness of taxes?

Please advise,

Thank you!
An another thing, what happens if I rent the house in matter of taxes, how will that affect me? It is bad enough not being able to pay the mortgage with the rent to get some penalty in the taxes, thanks.


Related Blogs

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What to do if a creditor refuses to honor the military relief act?

I have a 23 year old son who joined the US Navy last June 2, 2008. From that point on, I tried to get his debts reduced to the allowable 6% for active military personnel. I was able to easily get his credit card, mortgage payments reduced by showing that I had power of attorney and proof that he was in the Navy. HOWEVER; from day one, Ford Credit has given me nothing but grief!! I have had to call and call, and be on hold sometimes up to almost a half an hour to speak to someone, who usually is not helpful. Finally in September of last year I reached someone who told me what to fax them. I did and then in December I received a letter telling me that by the time their person looked at the paperwork it had expired. So my son was out to sea and was difficult to get hold of him. I did in March of 2009 and got a renewed power of attorney and then refaxed the document. I didn’t hear anything so in April I started calling. After 4 hours worth of phone calls, I finally got through but they said I needed to refax the papers again. I did. Then 2 weeks ago I got a letter saying they are reducing his payment effective June of 2009. However, my son is eligbible to have his payments reduced from the time he entered active duty service. (which is what I put in the letter) So I called again today. I was on hold for 22 minutes. When I spoke with someone, she put me on hold for 6 minutes. Then she came back and said that she believes that since my son is not deployed overseas that they dont have to honor the 6%. I explained that I have the federal law sitting in front of me. Anyways, she was extremely rude and not at all helpful. She said she would let someone else know and that this someone else would contact me. So…what can I do now? as Ford Credit is most obviously giving me the run around and blatantly do not want to comply with this FEDERAL law to protect soldiers and sailors?


Related Blogs

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

a credit card debt question?

My friend has gotten in some credit card debt. She tried to get her home refinanced, and was able to get her mortgage payments lowered, but wasn’t able to get the other debt paid off, so she went to a debt reduction service. Now, the cards are being paid off, but they are charging her such a big chunk of money that now she is behind in her mortgage. Now she is forced to choose between her household bills credit debt. She wants to pay both, but can’t. Any suggestions? And please, no nasty comments, as that will not help.


Related Blogs

Tags:, , , , , , , ,