My sob story

It all started in 2002 when I moved to Ohio to go to school. During this time I still had a job in Wisconsin that I was always welcome to return to on breaks and vacations.

Well in summer of 2004 they fired me because they were making budget cuts and since I was making high wages, I was one of the first to get the axe.

Well stupid me decided to try my hand at selling on ebay. On top of the small amounts I was making at that, I was taking out secondary student loans to pay for living expenses and to be able to make the minimum monthly payments on my already high credit card bills.

Well selling on ebay is always a crapshoot and after a year, had to give up because i could never compete with the drop shippers and other big sellers. So I continued to take out more student loans and try to find a job.

In May of 2006 I ended up bombing out of school and having student loans to the tune of almost $70,000. Also having credit card debts totalling almost $20,000.

I finally ended up finding employment however it is one of the lowest paying companies, Walmart. I make $8.50 an hour which is well below the poverty level.

Since I no longer had secondary student loans to fall back on, the credit cards ended up becoming late late late.

I pay a total of $550 per month for rent and utilities. Plus around $200 a month for my own living expenses (mostly gas since the Walmart I work for is 20 miles away). Unfortunately this doesn't leave much left over for paying credit cards and student loans.

For the last 6 months I had been getting numerous calls from my credit card companies wanting payment. I had become so afraid of all the calls that I have turned the ringer off my phone and never answer.

Just recently I have been getting a couple calls and letters from the bottom feeder collection agencies such as NCO and MRS. However most of the calls go to my parents in Wisconsin (even though I haven't lived there in 5 years).

I actually tried communicating with my credit card companies via snail mail and email but always went ignored. Hearing the horror stories made me fearful of actually calling. And the few times I actually got the courage to call, I ended up sitting on hold for over a half hour and would give up.

I tried making a temporary offer of $25 a month until I can find a second job but it all went ignored, just letters to call call call call call. And now the collection agencies want all the money now now now or else I'm in big trouble.

Thanks to this website though I got some good information and have started the process of sending a certified letter to each collection agency for debt verification.

Well anyways, thanks for listening to my sob story

Edit to add : In January I did make $50 payments to each of my credit cards but I guess that wasn't good enough for them