Readers regularly write to me asking what options they have for lowering credit card interest rates. Many people inquiring about consolidation are making monthly payments on time, but are only barely getting by, and some months end up taking money from one credit card to pay another, and are running out of balance transfer options. […]
Resolving Debt with Synchrony Bank
Many branded store, and specialty credit cards, are serviced by Synchrony Bank. If you are wondering whether you card is serviced by Synchrony, I provide a list of known businesses that use them below. As you can see, Synchrony is not just about its flagship relationships like Amazon, and Care Credit. They do a ton […]
Debt Collection: Something Different This Way Comes
By some estimates, more than a third of the adult population in the US is going to come in contact with a debt collector at some point. If you have never had to deal with debt collector before, your only exposure to the industry could be from the media, and perhaps by way of this […]
First Progress Secured Credit Card from Synovus
Earlier in the week I engaged in a string of comment replies with a reader who had paid some old collection accounts and is working on rebuilding his credit and improving his FICO score. We exchanged some comments about getting approved for a First Progress secured credit card as a tool to start rebuilding his […]
Can Work At Home MLM and Network Marketing Provide Full Time Income?
I spend much of my time helping people figure out how they can get through a tough financial situation that often peaks with the inability to pay bills. This means I am most often speaking to people for the first time when they have debt emergencies and late stage debt collection issues. This is not […]
Filing a CFPB Complaint
Throughout this website, and several others I contribute to, I suggest people file complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). I am usually responding to reader comments when I do, so the reason for suggesting filing the complaint is contained in each comment exchange, but only briefly. I want to be sure readers have […]
Recognize and Review a Debt Collector
Complaints about debt collectors number in the ginormous every year. The volume is somewhat understandable. I mean… how many other professions do you spend nearly all of your time trying to get someone to do something they cannot or will not do? Let’s face it, getting people to pay bills they likely can no longer […]
How will contacting a collection agency restart credit reporting or time limits to sue?
Dear Michael: “My daughter has medical bills from 2008 when an emergency situation arose and she was not covered under insurance. She recently checked her credit report and contacted the collection sites to see if they were really hers. If you contact the collection agency, does this restart the ‘7.5’ years on your credit report? […]
Why Women aren’t Talking about Money
A recent study by Fidelity Investments has uncovered some intriguing paradoxes about women’s relationship with money. Despite the fact that 92 percent of the women involved in the study want to learn more about financial planning, and 83 percent want to get more involved in their finances in the next year, a whopping 80 percent […]
5 Ways to Fix the Student Loan Debt Problem
The U.S. Department of Education recently unveiled a new and improved methodology for calculating student-loan payment delinquencies. Where it once figured the late-payment rate of student loans as a whole to be 17%, the department has now determined that when the same data is expressed in terms of individual borrowers, it’s as high as 38%. […]