Synopses & Reviews
Do you struggle each month to make minimum credit card payments? Are you 30, 60, or even 90 days late on several accounts? If so, you aren’t alone. According to a January 2010 report from the U.S. Federal Reserve, there are 609.8 million credit cards held by U.S. consumers, and the average credit card debt per household is $15,519. In the last 12 months, 15 percent of American adults, or nearly 34 million people, have been late making a credit card payment, and 8 percent (18 million people) have missed a payment entirely, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. If these statistics hit home for you, don’t turn to bankruptcy to solve your financial woes. This book will provide you with the tools to legally settle your credit card accounts — without ruining your financial situation for years to come.
How to Legally Settle Your Personal Credit Card Debt for Pennies on the Dollar is for everyone who is unable to pay mounting minimum payments on their credit cards. You will learn everything you need to know about the basics of credit card debt, including interest rates, finance charges, minimum payments, and late fees. Discover what actually happens to your credit when you are late making your payments or stop making payments altogether and how long it takes before your credit cards debt is sold to a collection agency. This book will provide tips and strategies for negotiating with your original creditor and collection agencies and sample settlement letters you can use when working with creditors. Equip yourself with proven strategies for legally challenging the validity of your credit card debt and information on how to determine whether your rights are being violated under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You will find out the advantages of not filing bankruptcy and how to work with credit counselors and avoid debt-reduction scams.
Once you have successfully settled your debt and avoided bankruptcy, you will learn how to avoid repeating these mistakes in the future by setting budgets, cutting costs, and lowering interest rates. Learn how the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, which went into effect in February 2010, affects you as a consumer. While these new rules do not absolve consumers of their obligations, they do mean that credit card companies can no longer retroactively increase rates, charge misleading late fees, or use over-limit fee traps.
We have spent hundreds of hours interviewing top financial experts, bill collectors, and individuals just like you who were able to legally settle their credit card debt without resorting to bankruptcy. If you are tired of dodging phone calls from collectors or worrying about how missed payments have ruined your credit score, get yourself back to a more stable financial situation — one where credit card debt is a thing of the past.
Synopsis
The current economic climate is dim for many Americans
Synopsis
The current economic climate is dim for many Americans it forecasts potential recession, trouble for homeowners, and increasing personal and credit card debt. According to Federal Reserve estimates, that credit card debt is already in the trillions of dollars and rising each year. So, what can you do about it without immediately resorting to bankruptcy eliminating the entirety of your finances for years to come? It's a tough question to answer and one that many are faced with regularly, but there are ways to handle these debts legally without reaching for the extreme, final measure that we all dread so much.
This book was written to provide every individual who is standing at the precipice of too much debt with the tools they need to settle that debt legally without ruining themselves forever. You will learn everything you need to know about the basics of debt, including what the various kinds secured, unsecured, personal, business, and tax debt entail and how they affect you. You will learn what happens to you when you don't pay, both legally and socially, and what your first steps should be on the road to repairing your debt.
You will learn how to assess your overall risks and what your options are with your creditors. You will learn what vulnerabilities your debt collectors have legally and what you can do to legally challenge the validity of your debt. You will learn how to deal with bill collectors and how to create a line of communication that is two ways and not reliant solely on them making demands. Top financial experts, bill collectors, and one-time debt owers have been contacted and interviewed for this book and their interviews have been included here to provide a complete outline of what you can expect when you try to settle your debt. You will learn how to start negotiating settlements with your creditors and what specific things you can and cannot do when dealing with them.
You will learn the variety of debtor's rights that exist and why they are never told to you, including details about the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and how this act is legally enforced. For anyone who has ever spent the better part of their life dodging calls from creditors or trying to figure out how to pay those bills next month, this book will be the tool you need to understand how to tackle and deal with your debt.
Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company president s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.
About the Author
Vice President of Operations, Freedom Debt Relief