Could not afford credit card debt consolidation - What should I do?

hi, in the past 8 years or so, I accumulated appx. 9,000.00 in credit card debt, probably with about 7 or 8 different cards. (balances ranging from 300.00-3,000.00) The last time I used any of these cards or made a payment, for that matter, was over 4 years ago. Each card, was of course, maxed out. I contacted...Genus, i think? - a credit card consolidation company, after I realized that there was no way I could afford to make the individual payments, nor afford the interest rates. The debt consolidation company lumped all of my payments together, and I was to pay them an amount of 180.00ish a month for a number of years...but i eventually had to stop making those payments as well. I simply did not have the money. I was in a financial bind at the time(I had lost my job)..so eventually, i simply ignored the debt consolidation payments as well. The debt consolidation company had stopped the creditors from calling me or sending letters, but after a couple of months of not making my debt payments to them, i began receiving letters from the creditors again and eventually various letters and phone calls from collection agencies, requesting payment, raising my interest rates, etc. etc. eventually, i started getting letters from attornies, stating that they were now in charge of trying to collect their debt, and that i needed to contact them asap to settle the debt, to meet them before they took me to court to get a judgment against me, and they offered me settlements, to pay the debt at a reduced amount, etc. i saved none of these letters, and essentially threw them away as I received them, as there was nothing I could do about them anyway. eventually, the letters and phone calls stopped, and I kind of forgot about the debt.

Now, here it is 3 or 4 years later, and I am doing much better financially. I am able to and want to pay off all of my credit card debt, and could probably afford maybe 200-300 a month in payments, if I consolidated all of these payments. I know a lot of people probably say this, but I really CAN and WANT to clean up my credit right now, but there are a couple of problems. 1-i have no idea how much i owe or TO WHOM. since i kept NONE of my creditors paperwork or bills, and haven't gotten any in the mail in a long time, I have no idea how much I owe, if they have all gone to collection agencies, if I have judgments against me, if I am in danger of garnishing of wages or seizure of property, etc. I'm trying to clean up my credit and maybe eventually settle down and start a family, and want to make sure my credit is clean and that everyone gets paid, and I don't have anything to bite me in the rear down the road. please contact me with advice on how to proceed.

Please let me know if it is "too late" to pay them off, if I "shouldn't worry about it", and the consequences I could suffer by "doing nothing". I read somewhere about the statute of limitations on collecting credit card debt in NC is 3 years, and over 3 years have passed since a payment was made, a payment agreement was made, or any activity on a credit card was made. Basically, I just dont want to pursue trying to pay back these people if there is nothing to be gained from it, if the NC statute of limitations has passed, and they can no longer try to collect or try to seize my property or garnish my wages, or if if it is "too late". by "too late", I mean, if I already have a judgment/black mark against me, and they CANT garnish my wages and seize my property or anything of the sort, and nothing would be gained by paying off this money. in essence, id just like you to tell me if it might be in my best interest if i left it alone, and did NOT pay them back

I would like to clean up my credit and pay off my debt, IF 1-your co. could help me LOCATE my debt, how much I owe to whom, since i no longer receive any bills in the mail ; 2-could set up a consolidation of debt, and a reasonable payment plan, of 200-300 a month; and 3-it would be in my best interest to try to pay them off, since so much time has passed. Mostly, I want to make sure they can't garnish my wages or seize my property. please let me know. thank you.

First of all have you checked your credit report? If you have a judgment it should be on there, but you should have also got a summons for court. I believe in order to get a judgment you need to go to court first.
Now that you registered you should be contacted by a company soon.

Check your credit report, you are allowed 1 free report per year from all 3.That is where you should start.

..will check into it.

If you have any questions on reading the report I believe Cajun knows credit report very well. And he will help you out in understanding the tech. terms on it.

could someone, like a forum moderator, please edit my original post and take my name out of the first sentence? i thought i was sending an email with the original post...didnt know id wind up on a forum with my full name exposed. if you cant edit my post, please delete it. thank you.

Hi beingindebt,

I have wiped off your name from the first post. Please let me know if there is anything else to be done.

Regards
Mike

thanks mike! anyone else got any ideas on what I should do? am gonna request the credit report..

beingindebt, I am the Cajun they are referring to.I need quite a few details to get a direction to go in.If you are uncomfortable with displaying details,I welcome your pm since you are a registered member. The first thing I need to know is resident state when the debts were occurred and current resident state. Next you will need to go to www.annualcreditreport.com and pull a report from each bureau so we can see where you stand.Lastly if you are called or written to on any of these debts do not make a payment or promise to pay until we can determine the statute of limitations on each debt.

First thing you need to do is pull a credit report from the 3 majors. I think you can get 1 free per year but there are some stipulations on that otherwise they are like 10 bucks each or something. With those you can actually see who you need to worry about in order to clean your credit. I would not bother with a consolidation company especially if you are not receiving mail or phone calls anymore. Next you need to start saving money. Once you have around 1000 or so call and make an offer. Since they are really old debts I would offer 10% of the reported amount. If your credit report says 4500 owed I would offer them 450 as settled in full. Make sure they send it in writing first as settled in full for the agreed amount before you send them a check. Keep copies of the letter and check forever. The ones that are outside the SOL you do not have to settle with but I do not think you can get them off of your report if you do not settle. Once you settled it still will be on your report for a while but instead it says something like settled for less than amount owed. This is better to have than a charged off debt entry.

Sorry some of my post is a duplicate of cajuns. I did not see his until after I posted.

all debts were occurred i NC, and am still living in NC. i really, really appreciate this help, guys. i actually have a little money saved up, but will not pay or promise to pay anything until we see where i stand, ill just save any bill collector info if i get anything in the mail. if anyone would like to email me, please feel free to do so.

thanks again for all of your help and expertise!

beingindebt, once you have them credit reports in front of you let me know so we can establish date of first delinquency.The limitations for civil action in nc is 3 years oral or written & 5 years promissory note.

i just sent off for my experian report. for some reason, it wouldnt allow me to get it online, kept saying we are unable to process your request at this time? so i did it by snail mail..but asa i have it, will be back. thanks so much.

...just got the copy of my credit report. doesnt look as bad as i thought. looks like about 10,000.00. I actually half heartedly got in touch with a debt consolidation agency, and faxed them a copy of my credit report. but the dumb lady rep from the company is trying to tell me that 1-i only owe 4,500.00 in debt (which i know is more than that, even though she says she double checked it), and she can set something up for me to where i pay 165.00 a month for 3 years, and im debt free. however, she says she needs the acct. numbers from my accts, which i dont have. there are only partial acct. numbers. SO, i called the creditors 1-800 numbers from my crdit report, and was able to obtain all but two of my credit acct numbers (and in the process, I let it slip that i had contacted a debt consolidation agency to help me with making payments, and "they updated my file with that info"...whoops.). the last two acct numbers, one of the creditors cant find it under my name or social in the system, and the other, they said they must have sold it to an outside debt collection agent, but couldnt tell me who? they didnt know?

so, now, im in limbo. i really am trying to get my debt settled, but 1-i dont believe the debt consolidation people when they say i only owe 4,500...if i add up all of the debt on my credit report, it says 10,000.00. and 2-i cant seem to locate my old acct numbers for 2 of the debts owed. im on the verge of saying forget it, and just leaving it alone again. im very srustrated, and could use some professional help. ironic...now that i have the money and could afford to start paying all of my debt, it is very difficult to actually do that. seems like these debt consolidation people should be better at locating all of my debt and setting everything up for me. i dont get it.

any help would be appreciated, guys. thanks.

i want to email the moderators on this...can you please delete this thread please? for privacy issues? does anyone know the moderators email addresses? it is no longer listed on the contact us sheet...