Have you ever taken advantage of free resources only to discover that you are stuck with a bill or a major inconvenience?
Now, I am not one to knock getting free stuff. I love free stuff... to a certain degree.
But I also think you should be aware of what those free things will really cost you.
When paying off your bills, you have 3 basic options:
You can pay off your bill in full.
You can arrange a payment agreement and pay off your bill over time.
You can request a reduced payoff amount.
In an attempt to get past-due customers to pay their bills off quicker, a debt collector will allow the debtor to pay a lesser amount -- which may be as low as 50% of the original bill balance. They generally request a lump sum payment, but they may also allow the bill to be split into 3 or 4 payments.
Here's how to pay off your bills and boost your credit score at the same time... there is a little-known way to do this.
Credit counselors help consumers manage -- and ultimately lower -- their debt. They promise to negotiate with creditors, create payment plans, and lower the interest rates of those in debt. A credit counselor's ultimate goal is to help you eliminate your debt.
If you are in debt, a credit counselor will do 3 basic things for you:
1. Credit counselors help you consolidate several monthly payments from different accounts into one monthly payment. The single payment is usually much less than the sum of the payments you were previously making.
2. Credit counselors get your creditors to reduce the interest rates on your credit accounts. For example, a credit card with an interest rate of 30% may be reduced to as low as 5%. Or they may be able to eliminate interest payments altogether. This will help you pay off debts faster.
3. Credit counselors help you bring delinquent accounts current. They re-age the account by getting the company to list the account as current after you make several payments on time.
Everyone who uses credit knows what a FICO score is, but have you heard of a FAKO score?
FAKO scores are very similar to FICO stores in that they evaluate the creditworthiness of a person. But the term FACO (or FAKO) is used to indicate that the scoring system is not a Fair Isaac Corp (FICO) score, but rather a non-Fair Isaac Corp score.
In short, FAKO is a nickname that means fake FICO. Unfortunately, thanks to creative marketing, when people receive a credit score, they often don't realize that the score they're looking at in a credit report is actually a FACO score, rather than a FICO score.
Here's what to look for, and how to tell if the credit score you receive is a legit FICO score, or a fake FACO score.
If you are deep in debt and your phone is ringing all day with calls from debt collectors and collection agencies, you are not alone.
Thanks to the gas crisis, the housing crisis, and constantly rising food costs, a lot of people are dealing with debt collectors on a daily basis.
If you're looking for some debt collection help, including tips for dealing with debt collectors who are harassing you, I've got some advice. You see, I have been through all of this myself, so I know how to deal with recovering from debt and dealing with debt collectors.
Been there, done that!
Once you're in debt, it's difficult to get out of debt -- especially while protecting your credit score at the same time.
I happen to believe that it's worth it to let your credit score suffer a bit in order to dig yourself from under the weight of oppressive debt. It's best to worry about your credit score later.
Here's why...
I have to admit it. The company did an excellent job getting the URL into my head.
I don’t know if it was the commercial of the guys in the car with “legs sticking the vinyl and his posse getting laughed at", or the guy in the restaurant “selling fish to tourists in
T-shirts", but they certainly got the message across.
However, I started hearing reports that FreeCreditReport.com is not as free as the commercials say. So I decided to investigate the claims for myself.
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