Settle my own debts.

When I did it, all of the cards were in my name. My wife was not a co-applicant.

I had no trouble in settling. they never tried to contact her.
In fact they never asked about her.

You can always call the cc's and do a reverse probe.

Good luck.
You can do it with the help of all of the great infomation in this forum.

Regards,
King Jabba Labba

King,

Did you have to come up with large amounts of money to get your payments reduced. Also what is a reverse probe?

John

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I'm not delinquent yet but by next month I will be. Should I start negotiating now or wait not make payments and then try to negotiate?

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Blackbeast,

Did you have to come up with large amounts of money to get your payments reduced? Have they asked for any bank statements or other information from you to come up with a payment plan yet?

King did settlements by the sounds of things...settlements are a one time (sometimes broken into 3 payments)payment to settle the balance. You sound like you want lower payments...these are not the same and can be treated very differently.

Oh, I didn't know. Yes I do want lower payments. I almost to the point where I can't make the monthly payments. Is this something I can negotiate with the credit card companies?

If you can barely make the payments, you might want to be talking to a non profit consumer credit counseling or a bankruptcy attorney. Each creditor has their own guidelines and you would probably want to talk to each one individually.

totally agree with soap on this one. there is a difference in lowering your monthly payments (means you will still pay back 100% of debt) versus settlement (means paying back anywhere from 20-75% of debt....but with a lot more involvement).

i am choosing the latter. i know the consequences of settlement but i feel that im young enough to get past this and have a stress free life!

but to answer your question, yes i will have a large amount of money stored up to pay a 1 time sum to each CC company once we reach a settlement %.

if they ask for bank statements i'll tell them i don't have a checking account and use cash for everything :)

They shouldn't ask for bank information. Don't volunteer info, and if you have an account with the bank you owe, I would remove the money and put into a neutral bank to do the payments out of.

I have a checking account with Chase, and a CC with chase that I just missed my first payment on... can chase reach into my account without permission and take the money?

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It sounds so easy to do. I think I'm going to give it a try, but it will be hard because I work 2 jobs and trying to talk to creditors in private will be a challenge. Thank you all for your suggestions and great information.

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