debt consolidation loan atlanta georgia
Debt Consolidation Atlanta Georgia 866-943-1388
Unsecured Consumer Credit Card Debt Elimination, Present Day Con Jobs
If you have lived long enough and took the time to pay close attention you will notice that trends often come in cycles. What is cool now will be cool once more 10 years from now. Just look at all of the new fashions people are wearing nowadays. You may recognize some of them from your own youth, or the youth of your parents. This is the natural order of things. Individuals grow to be crazed with something until it eventually burns itself out, but when enough time has passed someone decides to bring back those old trends to go for yet another round on a fresh number of faces.
This process of cycles does not limit itself to simply fashion. It can also be observed in other facets including debt relief. To comprehend this, you need to comprehend the different varieties of debt relief. The oldest of these forms is Bankruptcy. This was designed for individuals who fell on tough times to stay away from becoming shot, hung or going to debtors’ prison. As time continued however people seen that this was a tool that could possibly be used and taken advantage of. Individuals would deliberately overextend themselves and when they reached their max capacity, they’d file for bankruptcy and have it all wiped away.
For years financial institutions lobbied to get this changed. Around 1995 the bankruptcy abuse act was established. This put stronger regulations on who could and could not be able to get a chapter 7 bankruptcy. It put a bigger focus on a chapter 13 bankruptcy, which is actually a repayment program where people could end up paying 80 % or more back to the lenders.
To offset the losses they had been seeing because of the increase in bankruptcies, banks began to increase interest levels. After time the interest rate caps raised to as much as thirty percent or more. This put lots of people who had been still paying their debts either on a never ending cycle of paying minimum payments and getting no place, or on the edge of falling behind. Out of this the consumer credit counseling program arose. In most instances these agencies were run, or at the least backed by the lenders themselves. What this allowed people to do is to stop using their cards and put them into this program. The company would try to lower all of the interest rates then you would make one monthly payment to the agency who would disperse it out to the creditors monthly.
The good part about this program is that you were capable of paying down the debt in five to six years. That is obviously a lot better than taking 30 or greater years. But, the negative effects was that the payment you had been making was normally the exact same as your minimum payments in the first place, so if you had been in a situation where you had been going to get behind, then this wouldn’t stop this.
Again with most things, people became greedy and as more and more people decided to ring up their cards then enter them into a CCCS program hoping for 0 % interest for good, the credit card companies changed several of their guidelines. Several of them did away with 0 % interest levels or limited them to one year. Additionally they started to reassess people after six months to a year, to find out if they still qualified for the program.
Next came the debt consolidation loan boom. As property values began to increase, lenders discovered more and more people with equity in their houses that could possibly be accessed. Therefore began the home equity loan boom. A multitude of people began to utilize their houses equity and consolidate their debt into one low monthly payment. But once more greed began to dominate. As the pool of potential individuals who qualified for traditional loans disappeared, the industry began to produce new adjustable rate loans for individuals who wouldn’t have typically been able to obtain a loan. This was the beginning of the housing collapse. As with every bubble, if you keep inflating and blowing it up eventually, it is likely to pop. And this is what happened. As these adjustable rate loans began to alter, several of them tripled the interest rates forcing the property owner to fall behind and in many instances lose their houses.
As you might know there are constantly likely to be those individuals who will benefit from individuals who are in dire straits. We frequently call these people “snake oil salesmen” coined from the early years when people would sell make believe potions to cure almost everything from baldness to rheumatoid arthritis. These get wealthy fast sort of people would sell this tonic to people desperate for a remedy. In many cases very quickly, people would realize that this was a scam, but not prior to lots of people would have become victim to them. If the salesperson wasn’t hanged, he would lay low, going from town to town until people forgot about him along with the truth he was a sham, then he would pop his head up once more selling his snake oil to individuals who did not know it was a scam.
Just like these snake oil salesmen, there are people within the credit card debt relief industry that try to benefit from people in desperate situations. One sort of this get wealthy scam is what is referred to as debt elimination. The concept of this is that you simply hire a lawyer who’ll try to sue the credit card companies saying that the debt is not valid. They try to make use of old loopholes within the law saying that it is unlawful how they calculate interest rates, or forcing them to “prove” you owe the debt. Regardless of what these people tell you, ask yourself this one question. Did you charge the debt? Did you benefit from using the card by making purchases for merchandise which you owned? Unless someone stole your card and made purchases you didn’t know about, or the bank added charges to your bill that belongs to another person, in most all instances the response to that question is going to be yes. That being said, you are likely to be hard pressed to convince a judge that the debt is not yours and you do not owe it.
The last form of debt consolidation program is debt negotiations. There are basically two varieties of debt negotiations. The very first is referred to as Debt resolution. This is when you hire an attorney to negotiate with your credit card companies, on your behalf, in an attempt to get them to agree to accept much less than your full balances. The key issue with this form of debt relief, it that in most instances the debt settlement attorney will charge a retainer as well as a monthly legal fee in advance before any settlements have been achieved. This is normally on top of their settlement charges. Even though it might appear reasonable to pay an attorney to legally represent you, what lots of people don’t recognize is that the law firm won’t represent you in court. In reality, several of them won’t even help with answering the summons. All they are representing you for is to negotiate your debt and that’s it. So basically you are paying them additional to do totally nothing.
The second form of debt negation is called debt settlement. As with the above example, this is where your debt is negotiated for much less than what you presently owe by a qualified debt settlement company with a proven background. Just as with the law firms there are those debt settlement companies that may try to take fees in advance. Be careful, it goes against current regulations. Any reputable settlement company will in no way charge you for their services before debt has been settled.
It actually doesn’t matter what form of debt relief you decide to go with, in the long run you need to be well informed. A reputable company will do everything they are able to to make sure you know all of your options and have a clear comprehension of all of them. They won’t try to push you into anything and will go into great detail when looking at your case. If you are seeking credit card debt settlement, do your research and be sure you are dealing with a business that is willing to follow the regulations, not charge you any fees until a settlement has been reached, and who will be sure that the alternative they offer you is genuinely the best option for you.