wow i am sorry to hear about what happned to you.. but i am confused as to what law (laws) would do this... allow a crediter to raise your rate ? did they rase the rate bc you became a higher risk consumer ? score droping to 500s ? or just rase it bc they can ?
confused
Welcome to the forums, though I'm not sure this is the right board or even forum for this question. If you're not able to make more than the minimum I'd try talking to a financial advisor. Personally I think you'd be compounding the issue by letting the card go late and eventually charge off, and lengthening your recovery from the short sale.
If you have assets you can take a loan out against (car, etc) that weren't enough to keep you in the house, consider doing that. If you can pickup a second income in your family, that's worthwhile too, even if it's simply part-time, an extra $100 or whatever a week can make a big difference. Since you're out of your mortgage, can you find a cheaper place to live? Personally I'd also start looking at what expenses I could strip out, even an extra $5 per day eating out for lunch adds up if you can put that towards the credit card balance. I'd even see about taking a loan from a family member, even a few thousand would put you way ahead on the amortization curve even if you could only make the mimimum. You probably have options.
If you're down to the difference between putting food on the table or not and nothing you can leverage, then that's one thing, but if you're not at that point, I don't think you're at the maybe second to last resort of just letting it default. May be able to get help from one of the debt management programs as well which I think is a lesser of two evils on a credit report compared to a charge off.
Anyway I hope you can find a resolution to the issue somehow.
Wolf3 wrote:
I am guessing the shortsale of your home looks like a chargeoff on the credit report. Adding a 2nd chargeoff will not make the score any worse. If you can't find a way to pay this off in a few years. Then I suggest you settle it out. Learn how to do it yourself. There is a lot more in our forums on this site for this. In 20 years, you will have paid in $200K or more. It is unreasonable to continue that burden.
It's true that a short sale is extremely damaging. There is a discussion over on fico.com about whether FICO scores accurately reflect risk since short sales are negotiated and not the same as a foreclosure. Sadly, the stats suggest it is accurate. One in two people that have a short sale go on to default within the next two years supporting the idea that short sales indicate very high risk.
http://bankinganalyticsblog.fico.com/2012/08/are-short-sales-really-that-bad.html
@Wolf3 wrote:I am guessing the shortsale of your home looks like a chargeoff on the credit report. Adding a 2nd chargeoff will not make the score any worse. If you can't find a way to pay this off in a few years. Then I suggest you settle it out. Learn how to do it yourself. There is a lot more in our forums on this site for this. In 20 years, you will have paid in $200K or more. It is unreasonable to continue that burden.
I think it's more like 20K 
Still a lot admittedly.
Anyway, while it might not be a problem for FICO purposes, I think it's a world of difference come underwriting. A lot of people for whatever reason got into mortgages they couldn't afford. It happens, to a non-trivial number of people, and that explantion will be accepted at face value to any loan officer in the next 10 years.. That's on the assumption it's the one and only blemish on the report; however, walking away from a 10K debt (and it'll probably rack up penalties and fees to around 13k+) and is going to be a much more difficult discussion.
There's a lot more towards any approval than just FICO score, and at some point the OP is likely going to need another car, or a shot at another house, and I just don't think that having an additional CO will make it anywhere near as rosy as it would be without the CO.
