A Carrollton, TX Consumer's Story of Debt Settlement

A common misconception regarding credit card debt is that it applies to spend-happy, irresponsible people who had too many shopping sprees at the Galleria or North Park.  The fact is, the average age is a person seeking relief from credit card debt is forty-two, and many times the culprit of the debt is not flightiness, but unexpected medical bills or a period of unemployment.

Here is a story from Janice, a woman from Carrollton, Texas tells her experience with credit card debt and America Debt Resolutions:

In the fall of 2006, I was a day late paying my Bank of America bill because I was either too busy get the envelope to the mailbox, or I was just trying to juggle the in and out-flow of money down to the day like we often have to.  Or maybe I was just too close to my credit card limit. They've given me a hard time about that too. In any case, they took my APR up to an unheard of 30%, making it impossible for me to pay my minimum balances. And nothing I could do would talk them down.

So I found myself here, and I learned about settlement. I had never been more than a day late in any payment, so as I learned more of the "dark side" of settlement (that I would have to stop paying bills, or no one would settle), I was pretty worried. I was originally talking to the company that was popular here at the time (I don't know if they still are), but their payment plan really worried me. Because of the up-front fees and because of my low income, it would take years to settle my debts through their setup.

 I knew that settlement was possible, but only if the person doing the negotiation was very clever and knowledgeable. I felt he was.

We stopped paying our bills in...March 2007 I think it was? And by September we were debt-free.

I can't say it was the easiest thing I've done. While he did what he could to stop phone calls, it wasn't foolproof. It helped that I had a cell phone as my main phone that could be set to only accept #s in my address book. And of course nothing can help the guilt if you are someone who has always paid your bills.

But it worked. All three of our cards were settled before charge-off.