Should I just let the credit cards go? Banks wont reduce interest so i dont care anymore

[creditguy]

I'm surprised your Chase call only resulted in account closures and not a welfare check by your local law enforcement agency. You may have been joking but I wouldn't suggest talking about blowing your brains out again, not worth that potential hassle on top of everything else.

With that said, I can only suggest as others have said and that's to consult a competent BK attorney and get some solid advice. You aren't the first or last person to end up in a situation like this, maybe you can dig out after some years or maybe not, either way it's going to cause some damage to your credit in the meantime so why not look into a fresh start. Good luck I wish the best for you and your situation.

[Anonymous]

Not going to do that, was just trying to get a rise out of them and hope they would pity me or something. Clearly they didnt give a **bleep**. But I'm not sure what to do, of course I was going to continue paying 4 or 5 other cards with low balances and minimums (capital one cards with 1200 and 3600 dollars racked up on them). But I'm sure if I defaulted on all the other cards they would close them out because the credit score tanked. Its so annoying how they all look at your reports every month.

[Anonymous]

Ok, let's get over ourselves...these are BUSINESSES not your gf or your Mom....of course they won't 'care' about you or give a **bleep**

Just like it's none of their business when you overspend or have an idiot for a partner or buy extra cars you don't need or focus on more businesses than you can handle vs the one that pays... same thing, nobody wants the bank to be their mother till there is on the floor.

Btw, Mom can and will speak before the ish hits the fan because she can, the bank ain't nothing but a vendor but NOW, ppl want 'pity' smh

As others have mentioned BK may be a decent option, either some money management and personal & business systems help is obviously needed. Those balances and overages and APRs and a gazillion businesses and unrelated ventures help paint a picture of someone that needs help on focus and impulse control.

When a person threatens to blow their head off to GET a rise or their way, they expose a lot about whom they are ( yeah, I know 'some' of us, any of us could be being sarcastic) but once you couple it with all the other 'decisions' and the all or nothing attitude, the dumping on the partner...calling that person an idiot 'too' would make me pay attention to the OP, as in real need of something more than financial help.

Honestly, there seems to be more than JUST 'A' business issue going on, hopefully someone closer than us on these board can provide a needed hand (not financial) for the OP

Sincerely,
Best Wishes and regards

[redpat]

Mmmm, those are balances they aren't going to walk away from you are going to have the get legal counsel if you let them go.  Your other business is in jeopardy because you own it and is an asset, part of your PG.

[Anonymous]

Since these are expenses from a business gone bad, I'd consider a BK. But I'd first talk with a BK attorney first.

[NRB525]

Welcome to the forums. Thanks for sharing your situation. Hopefully you get some good advice from here. 

One note, these are business debts, so they will affect your credit in different ways from personal debt, I think.

In 2009 I had $116k of outstanding balances on personal cards, due to availability of low APR BT offers. There was cash for some of that, but it's been a journey getting that paid down to about $16k today.  My point is that you can pay it over time, with focused effort, and cutting back on unnecessary costs. Your existing business sounds like it is going well, so that provides you with resources to pay the bills. Eventually you may be able to get lower APR offers somewhere, but if you stop paying, that option to find lower APR goes away.

It sounds like the realization of a business failure is fairly recent. I would caution against rushing into a decision to "stop paying tomorrow" and see what you can do in the next few months. Sell the truck, apply those funds to the highest APR to reduce that cost. Focus on the business that is working, to make that as successful as possible. Take some time to think back to what caused this business to fail; Not your first impression, and not blaming your business partner, but what can YOU do differently to realize success. 

If you're able to pay this off, those banks will be back to lend to you. If you demonstrate willingness to try, they may eventually work with you to reduce APR. 

If you stiff them, it will hurt your chances of borrowing in the future to grow other businesses. And you have most of the main banks in this, there are few other large bank alternatives to go to.

Best of luck, let us know how it goes for you. 

[Anonymous]

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@Creditaddict wrote:

You need "Financial Hardship Program" and much like the housing market, you will find out that most banks will not offer you the financial hardship program until you have missed a payment... Now before anyone gets crazy.... "missing a payment" means something different for each bank... some you just have to literally be 1 day late and you can call and get on a program, some will require you to be 16 days or 31 days or 45 days late before the hardship will be available but 99% ALL BANKS DO HAVE a hardship program.

Also keep in mind that going 31 or even 45 days late on your credit card is actually still less than 30 days late to the credit report... so they won't even be reporting that you are late yet!

Most hardship programs will bring apr to under 9% and minimum payment to be fixed for at least 12 months for probably interest only payments basically if not less!

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I know Barclays has a financial hardship program, but I had to call in and tell them I couldn't afford to make a payment, and I was already a month late.  They offered to wipe away the late fees, penalty APR, and were able to reduce my APR from 23.24% to 8% for 12 months. Made the payment go from $255 a month to $102, a huge relief at the time. I can more than afford that payment now, but it's good that they have such a program. Although they won't admit that they have it now when they ask, because most CSR's are clueless. The bad part is they closed the account, and reported it closed by them.

[Anonymous]

I have been where you are where I just did not care anymore. I had about $40k in personal CC debt and no assets other than an 8 yr old car. I researched it enough to know that I could not be arrested for defaulting on my debt and that's about it.  So, in August of 2009 I walked away from my 4 largest accounts with every intention of filing BK.  Fast forward 6 months when I got my first processes server showing up at my door with a court summons and I met with a BK attorney within the next few days.  I still had every intention of filing but, in the end I chickened out totally and could just never do it.  

Part of that process was the attorney advising me to make no further payments on the accounts I was paying ("Why throw good money at bad?"). Between that time and the time I decided not to file, about 4-5 months had passed and I felt SO FREE because I finally had cash money again. For YEARS prior, I had literally been living my cards, just because I had dug such a huge  hole for myself, and  my bank acct was constantly darn near overdrawn.

The collection calls and letters were so numerous that I almost could not deal with it.  I unplugged my phone, lied to my family about what was going on, and lived in constant fear of the next knock at the door.  

I went through 5-6 years of this which included judgments filed, wage garnishments, multiple servers showing up at my house, CONSTANT phone calls at home, at work, on my cell phone, and these creditors also calling at least 5 of my family members.   Now it is almost 7 years later and I am STILL re-building and my credit is STILL a mess.  It will be a year before all the negatives fall off. Not only that but the judgments I have paid (all of them) will not be gone from my reports until 2022 in 2 cases.

As a data point, I had probably 15-20 accounts I walked away from and was "only" sued for 5 of those accounts, balances ranging from $1,200 - $14,500.  Thankfully I am outside the SOL now and can no longer be sued by anyone.  

I would normally never suggest someone file BK but, in hindsight, I would 110% go back and go through with it like I'd planned to.  Rebuilding after a BK is not as hard as it seems like it would be, you don't have to deal with collection calls or the possibility of being sued, you don't have to fear your accounts being frozen or wages garnished and, one of the best parts, 7 years from now, rather than still waiting on negative items to fall of, you'll basically be 90%+ re-built and your credit issues will be but a distant memory.  

I speak from experience.  Walking away from your debt and just trying to ignore the mess is not fun, nor is the total destruction of your credit. Having good credit is much more important than I realized until I had awful credit.  Yes, BK destroys it too but in a different way and in way that is much quicker to recover from.  My debt and all of the related issues  have kept me in chains that are just staring to break away;  

I will say that I did not have the means to settle anything so payment of any kind for me was not an option for me at that time.  I have since paid almost everying via wage garnishemtns or settlements but that has just been in the past few years.

Good Luck!!

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[MrsCHX]

A consultation with a Bankruptcy attorney will likely cost you nothing. I think you should seriously consider it. 

It will affect you, yes, but for most people they are well into building a new credit history within a year or two even though it hangs around for 10 years. 

[sjt]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 Hello all. I'm 80K in the hole thanks to a business venture that went bad. Most of the cards we used to run the business are in my name as a PG and have huge balances (and huge APR's) however my business partner also has some in his name he gets to pay which i am glad because he is an idiot too. I tried calling and speaking to management with every bank and only one, chase, offered to reduce the interest by 2 PERCENT from 24.99...i asked the lady if she was serious and she said yes. I then told her I was just going to never pay the card at all and blow my brains out and they will get nothing. Then the next day all of my cards were closed with them.

So, what is the worst I'm looking at here? I know I'll probably be sued by all of them because of huge balances and seize my bank accounts, but I have almost nothing in checking/savings anyway and have been using mostly cash for 6 months to pay all my bills as it is. I also have several business bank accounts I could live off of that are in the EIN of other business names only (They are over 15 years old), and not associated with any credit card accounts so I don't think those could get seized. Just idle bank accounts with 100 bucks in them or so. Every now and then I transfer 50 bucks into them and use the debit card just to keep the account active. I could also have my brother open up accounts and let me use them to pay bills and get a debit card and such so I wouldn't be totally screwed.  I own my home and 2 newish vehicles outright, so I don't expect to apply for any more credit in the next 5 years. I'm thinking of just stopping paying them starting tomorrow...the minimum payments are almost 3 grand a month. My main business nets me about 60K a year after taxes and after paying all my bills I have nothing left every month. This is a strong business that is not going anywhere and I could make a lot more focusing just on it and not worrying about keeping the other business afloat here.

Balances are as follows:

Wells Fargo business platinum - Limit: 37,500  balance: 21,800

Chase Business - Limit $25,000  balance $31,500 (yes they let me go over since its a signature card)

Bank of america businesscard - Limit: 23,600 Balance $39,000 (same as above, i used to always pay off large balances every month so they let me charge a ton more)

Discover business card - Limit: 15,000 balance $8k

And a few others but no point in listing them. Can I expect after not paying for a few months they will want to settle ? I could sell my truck for about $18k which I really don't need anymore (but was given to me by my father before he died and it has sentimental value) and use it towards the bills. But i fear this would not be enough anyhow.

Thanks for any thoughts.

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Have you looked into a non profit credit counseling service. They have a Debt Management Program that negociates with banks to reduce interest rates anywhere from 0% to 4% and you can make one payment. Its a really good program.