this makes my blood boil

[cynhgm]

Last week I got one of this "this is our last warning before we charge off your account" letters from Bank of America. The first few sentences go somewhere along this line:

We really tried hard to get in touch [oh, yes, you did by calling every telephone number you have 6-8 times a day] with you and work something out but since you refused to get back to us we have no other option but to charge-off your account.

This really makes me mad. As soon as I knew I was in financial trouble a few months back the first thing I did was contacting my creditors to let them know and see if we can work something out. I was laughed at. I was referred to credit counseling service. I didn't get anywhere with it. I tried it at least three times. Now months later they blame me for not wanting to work with them? What the hell? How do these people expect that I will carve in now and pay them all the fees and interest and what not?

This is a good example how far creditors and debtors are removed from each other.

[treehugger1]

Even if they "agree" to work with you after 60 or 90 days, the extreme damage (29+% interest, $40/month late and $40/month over max fees) has already been done. Add some unemployment, reduced salary, etc, and everything crashes down.

[JustOverBroke]

Even if they "agree" to work with you after 60 or 90 days, the extreme damage (29+% interest, $40/month late and $40/month over max fees) has already been done. Add some unemployment, reduced salary, etc, and everything crashes down.

LOL the story of my life.

My payment was a matter of hours late to Chase I didn't get it in before 3:00pm on the due date so my interest went from 5.84% to 19.99% I called them begged for mercy but they just told me to make my payments on time for the next 6 months then call back and they will review my account.

The very next month they raised my rate againto 29.99%
after that I just said forget this and we just quit paying everyone and put the cards away.

We file on July 1st,I can't wait to get this thing going and get it behind us once and for all.

[CompTweaker]

Wow, reading this post (especially BB's) is bringing back memories from 3 years ago. All I'll say since I dont want to get into a big debate with anyone, is REMEMBER, the pipes are clogged with many debts and time could really be on your side right now with some of them. And that sucks about you losing your home BigBoy....(know we had our differences, but I really do hate that!) Good Luck to you all.

[falken]

IMO, creditors could care less if you paid them back or not.

Sure, they want customer who pay but if you have any type of issues paying you are no longer a good customer and they don't care if you ever pay agian.

They have a new goal now... get your balance as high as they can as quickly as they can before they have to write it off. Larger tax deduction that way, and a higher $$ amount to claim if you file a chapter 13.

My debt was increasing at a rate of ~$7500/mo until I filed (a few dollars shy of the chapter 13 limit, which is why I filed).

I tried to work with bank of america before I was late, I needed an extra 2 weeks to make my payments due to a layoff. Nope, no go, nothing we can do, interest rate is going to 30% (from 3.99%), call a credit cousiling service. There was no need to try and pay them now, no way I can afford to pay 10x my minimum payment from now on.

[Psiber]

BofA was the last straw that caused me to stop paying my cc bills. I was still current on all debts, no lates, no over limits, and they raised my rate from 7.99 to 29.99, so I stopped paying them. Then after about six months I got a letter saying they would be willing to reduce the interest rate to 8.00 if I started paying!! Now they have those scumbags at Fred Hanna after me, but I'm still not paying. I figure I'll wait as long as possible before filing, let them spend as much money on trying to collect as they want to, they're not getting a penny out of me.

[bk4sky]

mine all really tried to work with me, they sent me lotsa nice letters in the mail on how they would reduce the payments, interest...etc. My problem was that i took such a HUGE job loss that all i could afford was my necessities, food, gas...rent. There was no way i could have worked anything out so chose to BK. Finally had my 341 today....whew!

when they charge you off isn't that when they send you to a CA but will settle with you? if that's so maybe you can do the settlements if you are not up for BK. My situation i couldn't afford settlements and when i tried cccs and told them my income vs. my bills they said i needed to consult a lawyer, they couldnt help me, and i think even if you go thru cccs they can still ruin your credit so BK is prob better anyway.

***note

another thing that didn't make my situation any better is when i 1st took he huge pay cut i was struggling so hard to make my min payments each month but once they got wind of my new debt/income ratio they jacked up my interest rates to ridiculous amounts and made it impossible for me to make my new large minimum payments, and then i started getting all the letters in the mail about how they were revoking my credit due to my debt/income ratio. But you know what? if they didn't jack up my min payments and interest rates so damn high because of my debt to income ratio i prob would have still been paying on them and instead of filing BK they would have gotten some of their money, so yeah the way they do things is really screwed up, you would think instead of making it harder for someone to pay and forcing people into BK, wouldn't they make more money by working out more reasonable payment plans with those that get into financial trouble?