@Creditaddict wrote:
Who cares about keeping the cards open... lets focus on getting them paid off.
(before you go crazy responding to that let me clear up a couple things)
ALL BANKS have hardship programs in place, Each bank is going to have a different policy on when you can qualify for that hardship program... Some you can just call and give them details about how close you are to bankrupt and they will offer a 12 month - 24 months 0%-9% fixed rate and payment program... some of the smarter better banks will just flat out offer you hardship for the life of the balance and lock you into a low low payment with 0% and offer you to pay extra to get it paid off sooner but just consider themselves lucky if you continue to pay it!
I can also tell you many of the banks will "Close your account" in a hardship for charges, but many of them will continue to report the account open to the credit reports so as not damage you further by having the maxed out card with no credit limit situation that a few have mentioned... remember, they are giving you hardship, they are guessing that you will go from hardship to bankrupt so they are better off trying to get some money from you and hope that you refinance or something with someone else and pay them off!
now back to getting into hardship: you can literally call each bank and ask them if they have a hardship program (most of the CSR's will either have a program in their system to run with you or transfer you to a specialty department but even in the specialty department it's still going to be a pre-determined computer system that they are typing answers into... keep it short and to the point of what they ask and not more... have your numbers ready... you can't come up to $0 or a $-negative number or they can't even offer you the hardship program (they are looking at where you are living, how you are getting to work, and basic bills plus a tiny extra for misc.
dont' tell them your car is almost paid off basically, just tell them the car payment!
Some banks will offer the hardship right away just because the card is maxed
Some banks will require you to be behind 1 payment (1 payment being, your due date is the 9th of Dec. and you call them the 10th of Dec. after not paying your minimum and you now qualify. Keep in mind credit cards don't report a 30 day missed payment until basically you are really 60 days behind... so you have a lot of room to get into all hardship programs, even the ones that require you to miss a payment without having anything report to your credit report.
Once you get approved for a hardship program if you are behind a payment or over your limit, just set up the hardship payment plan with them and then go in yourself and make an additional payment to bring the account current again and under limit... then you will be in the hardship plan with new lower interest and lower payment but will be current with the bank and with credit reports!!
I have personal experience with US Bank (they are easy!)
Sync store cards (your amazon store card) are a weird computer system (might work with no lates, may not work until 1 payment missed, may not work until 2 payments missed) but once it works your payment will literally be like $18 on 0-8%) they also continue to report the account open even though it's closed until you finish paying it all off!
+1
This is excellent advice!
I'll just add this... as someone who had personal experience with this, it can vary greatly from lender to lender.
Creditaddict is right about some lenders not even making this option available at all until you're already late (and the definition of 'late' can be different from card to card). I remember years ago before my BK7, I reached out to a few lenders for hardship assistance and had mixed results. I recall that specifically Discover wouldn't even talk to me about a 'hardship' program until I was a few months behind (they never told me how many). At that time the CSR told me unless I was "a certain" number of days behind there wasn't even an option on her screen for it (that's been years ago, though, so it could have changed). Unfortunately for me, in the end not enough of my lenders were willing to assist me to make a difference, and BK7 was the only solution.
I'm not saying this to discourage you... you situation is actually much better than my own was. In your case, even if only a few lenders are able to give you a break, it would make a huge difference, and (IMO) definitely be worth the effort. You're also going to have an injection of extra income once your car is PIF, so even without intervention there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel for you... just be patient and persistant, and you'll make it!
