debt consolidation

[juldea]

I received a debt consolidation offer in the mail. It looked decent. I did a little bit of research on the company, including this Wikipedia article which says they're the top all-time campaign donor to GWB AND that they've been accused of high interest rates... both of which are backed up by other websites.

Ummmmmmmm that'll be a no thanks. :P

Too bad, too... I could use it.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Not to worry. There are many other options...

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Enlighten?

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Debt consolidation consists of getting a loan that's big enough to cover your other loans. There are many companies who will give you such a loan. I don't have a list off the top of my head, however.

If you have school loans in there, I seem to recall the regulations on them are changing or just changed...I'll try to track down why I think this. (probably an article in the Globe or something)

MBNA are scum of the earth; I'm glad you passed on them. I'll save my bile for now, but suffice it to say they have irked me in the past.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

No school loans. School was all paid for by the state of Oklahoma and myself.

[kishpa.livejournal.com]

debt consolidation is something to not be taken lightly. It really depends on the kind of debt you have as well - if its all credit cards, you can see what you can do with your current companies to ask them to lower your interest rate instead of consolodating.. You can also apply for a new card with a larger limit that you can transfer all of your high interest balances to with a 0% balance transfer rate. You can also just bite the bullet, figure out what your highest interest rate is, pay as much toward that one every month as possible (cut up that damned card too!) and then work your way down the list - make your minimum payment + at least a dollar (it really DOES make a difference) on the rest and just cut them down gradually. There are a lot of other options too as I said, depending on what kind of debt it is.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

It is all credit cards, yep, and I'm going the "bite the bullet" route currently... paying minimums on all the lower-rate cards and throwing everything spare I have onto the highest-rate card until it's DESTROYED! :)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Well, I was waiting to see what people might suggest in response to this thread. I'm a little out of my league in this.

[tragicstory.livejournal.com]

My favorite and saddly true MBNA story:

MBNA: Since you have paid all your bills on time, we are raising your credit limit! Please feel free to enjoy a $10,000 limit with $5,000 availible as cash withdrawl. And since you are such a good customer, we will even drop the interest on cash withdrawn to 0% for a full year!

Friend: Cool! I'll take that 5K, pay off loans and pay back in a year interest free. Thank you MBNA!

[Friend does just that and cancels other cards]

[next month]

MBNA: Dear Sir,
Since you have withdrawn $5,000 this exta debt has pushed your credit score into a "liability" tier. We will now charge you 20+% for the balance owed on your MBNA card. I hope you enjoyed being screwed by MBNA.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Ouch and ew. :P