In this day and age it is unheard of to not have debt, or no credit cards, right? There are a few lucky ones who are fortunate enough to live debt free and with no credit cards carrying a balance. I for one am not that lucky. We are currently living way above our means and have an enormous amount of debt. I thought perhaps I can call the companies as suggested by many financial advisors and ask them to lower our interest rates. I have to say, I was a bit terrified at first, but after the first call, I felt more at ease and it just flowed off my tongue with no shame. The first company I called starts with the letter K and rhymes with holes. I was told that they cannot lower the rate and I was basically out of luck. Well, ok, on to the next. It was Capital One. They were so wonderful to speak with. Right away I was told I was a valuable customer of 7 years and they would like to keep our relationship a positive one so they offered to lower my rate 5% to a fixed 9.9%! I was amazed! How cool is that! Then I moved on to another independent store and no, they said, sorry, we can’t do that. Those two cards were at a 22% rate (give or take), so when I was talking to Capital One, they told me I can transfer balances at 0% for 18 months and there are no transfer fees!!!!! After the 18 months, the transfered balance/s would go to the fixed rate of 9.9%, so right there, I would be saving 12.1%!
I found out that the ability to help was 50/50. I did not think to myself, “Oh, yeah this is great” as most were not willing to work with us after explaining our situation. I know a lot of people are in similar situations and I would love to hear what has helped or just your experiences in general with regards to resolving credit card debt. Please feel free to leave a comment below.
After figuring out that I need to transfer those two high rated cards to the lower one, I decided to call a gas company. We are at our limit on those as well, but they too have a 23% rate! I called they said, sure lets see what we can do. Then came back with, sorry you don’t qualify. WTF? We don’t “Qualify”, how does one qualify? Do you randomly pick people and say, here, it is your lucky day. You get a lower rate! So yeah, on top of paying $3.10 a gallon, you can’t lower your interest rate? They sent me to their consolidation department. They were closed, but I plan on calling tomorrow to find out what exactly they wish to consolidate. Would they risk bankruptcy or agree to work with us? Let stay tuned and find out tomorrow.
When ever I hear consolidation, it freaks me out and makes me think of people running around with my money, or scamming me and I’d end up owing more than I really needed to pay to begin with after their “fees”. Not sure what exactly this consolidation department is all about, but I will share what happens, that’s for sure.
I just thought that was a kicker…here pay $3.10 a gallon for gas, and pay 24% interest so we can collect even more money from you suckers!!!
