It's got lots of history and I probably shouldn't ramble on for paragraphs. But...
I'm more than $100,000 in debt on credit cards and I just realized that I opened a new account with ###### last ###### (in addition to the account I had already) and then I got a $25,000 Cash Advance the next Month deposited to my Checking Account.
More than two-thirds of the Cash Advance got paid out to other cards and the rest got used up as we struggled to make our monthly payments and lived off of credit.
In ###### I stopped making payments to almost all of my creditors and now I'm less than a year out from that huge Cash Advance.
When I recently talked to the collections department I didn't fully realize the clues. From their perspective I opened up a new account, got a huge Cash Advance and then quit paying six Months later. This is the bank that was upset that all of my other accounts show me as being current even though they aren't. No wonder they didn't believe me when I told them my problems were due to medical expenses.
Holy crap, they're going to come after me for this one for sure. Right?
There's some additional history with the other account I've got with them that may help me not seem like a total creep. It was originally an ###### account with a credit line large enough to buy an SUV and I've had it for almost twenty years! We had gotten $25,000 Cash Advances from that account two different times to take advantage of temporary 0% APR offers. We paid those back with other transfers from other cards and barely paid the last one back in mid 2006. The account would be zero right now if not for $6,000 worth of charges we made in the last months before we abandoned using credit. The Interest Rates on that account had gotten bad due to a late payment and my weakining credit score kept them from restoring the lowest rates.
Having played the game before and feeling like I was being smart, I responded to a pre-approved offer from them with a good interest rate. I opened the new account to get the better rate even though my twenty year old account wouldn't budge. In the past I had been able to shuffle Credit Limits between accounts with the same bank and I did exactly that with the old and new accounts. The end result was a new account with nearly the same Credit Limit with a better Interest Rate than they would give me on my old account.
I wonder if my explanation will be enough to get me out of trouble. Among the many things I wish I had done differently in the past -- this is a BIG ONE!
I'm more than $100,000 in debt on credit cards and I just realized that I opened a new account with ###### last ###### (in addition to the account I had already) and then I got a $25,000 Cash Advance the next Month deposited to my Checking Account.
More than two-thirds of the Cash Advance got paid out to other cards and the rest got used up as we struggled to make our monthly payments and lived off of credit.
In ###### I stopped making payments to almost all of my creditors and now I'm less than a year out from that huge Cash Advance.
When I recently talked to the collections department I didn't fully realize the clues. From their perspective I opened up a new account, got a huge Cash Advance and then quit paying six Months later. This is the bank that was upset that all of my other accounts show me as being current even though they aren't. No wonder they didn't believe me when I told them my problems were due to medical expenses.
Holy crap, they're going to come after me for this one for sure. Right?
There's some additional history with the other account I've got with them that may help me not seem like a total creep. It was originally an ###### account with a credit line large enough to buy an SUV and I've had it for almost twenty years! We had gotten $25,000 Cash Advances from that account two different times to take advantage of temporary 0% APR offers. We paid those back with other transfers from other cards and barely paid the last one back in mid 2006. The account would be zero right now if not for $6,000 worth of charges we made in the last months before we abandoned using credit. The Interest Rates on that account had gotten bad due to a late payment and my weakining credit score kept them from restoring the lowest rates.
Having played the game before and feeling like I was being smart, I responded to a pre-approved offer from them with a good interest rate. I opened the new account to get the better rate even though my twenty year old account wouldn't budge. In the past I had been able to shuffle Credit Limits between accounts with the same bank and I did exactly that with the old and new accounts. The end result was a new account with nearly the same Credit Limit with a better Interest Rate than they would give me on my old account.
I wonder if my explanation will be enough to get me out of trouble. Among the many things I wish I had done differently in the past -- this is a BIG ONE!
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