*~Cam’s Mommy ~* asked:
I was unable to pay on a $26,000 line of credit. (It was a consilidation line of credit). I had a series of unfortuante events that led me to be unable to pay. I took on the debt with the intention to pay. After not paying, the bank put me on a payment plan with 0% interest but the minimum payment is too high for me to pay on my salary. I have stopped paying again. There is no wage garnishment in my state. I want to pay something on this debt, I just can’t pay more than $100 a month on it until my financial situation changes. So, what do I do? The bank says they can’t help me. My credit is already shot b/c of it. I’m current on everything else. Do I pay the $100 a month even though it’s not what I negotiated? Do I pay nothing and go to court? If I go to court and there is no wage garnishment, what can happen? (Again, my credit is already shot).
I was unable to pay on a $26,000 line of credit. (It was a consilidation line of credit). I had a series of unfortuante events that led me to be unable to pay. I took on the debt with the intention to pay. After not paying, the bank put me on a payment plan with 0% interest but the minimum payment is too high for me to pay on my salary. I have stopped paying again. There is no wage garnishment in my state. I want to pay something on this debt, I just can’t pay more than $100 a month on it until my financial situation changes. So, what do I do? The bank says they can’t help me. My credit is already shot b/c of it. I’m current on everything else. Do I pay the $100 a month even though it’s not what I negotiated? Do I pay nothing and go to court? If I go to court and there is no wage garnishment, what can happen? (Again, my credit is already shot).
try to call the bank, and negotiate a payoff amount, this will reduce the bill and lower the payments.
You’re right, if you stop paying they will probably take you to court and seek a judgement against you. If there is no wage garnishment in your state then they may freeze your bank accounts and debit what they want directly from those bank accounts whenever money appears in them. Don’t let this happen, even if it means opening a bank account in your mother’s name.
If I were you, I’d just keep paying whatever I could afford. Odds are they will not take you to court as long as they are recieving a sizeable enough payment.
First, yes you should keep paying the $100…it wasn’t negotiated, but at least it’s something and it shows that you are trying rather than looking like you are being irresponsible and running away form the debt. There really are only a couple of options that you can look at:
#1 – Get a part time job or find a way to make more money so you can make higher payments. whether it’s having a garage sale or something or getting a casual job or whatever.
#2 – Contact the bank and work out a settlement or contact a debt settlement company and have them try to lower the total debt amount. This would end up as a major strike on your credit report though.
Depending on how your state laws are, if they can’t garnish wages, they may still have the right to repossess something that is of that value, like a car, or several goods, etc.
The only other option would be bankruptcy, but given the amount of debt you are in it would be foolish to ***** yourself for that little amount of money.