FICO SCHMICO

[Jesedmotherof5]

Good luck to you in whatever you decide.. a quote I just found for someone who needs motivation surly fitting to your situtation as well..........Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." Mahatma Gandhi

[marty56]

It is becoming harder and harder to anything without a FICO score.  Try to get a cell phone, cable TV, rent, insurance and soon medical care without one.

Unless you have a lot of cash, eventualy you will have to have some sort of credit.  Unless you are Dave Ramsey in which case you are getting rich by getting people to pay you on how to manage their money.

Dave is entertaining but its easy to ignore credit when you have enough cash to do so and have access to new soruces all the time.

[katecrime]

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marty56 wrote:

It is becoming harder and harder to anything without a FICO score.  Try to get a cell phone, cable TV, rent, insurance and soon medical care without one.

Unless you have a lot of cash, eventualy you will have to have some sort of credit.  Unless you are Dave Ramsey in which case you are getting rich by getting people to pay you on how to manage their money.

Dave is entertaining but its easy to ignore credit when you have enough cash to do so and have access to new soruces all the time.

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not to go too far off topic, but marty, what do you mean by "soon medical care" regarding your credit score?  i don't see anyone ever being denied care because of a poor FICO

OP - good luck.  i don't know how you got in the situation you're in so i can't pass judgements, but i'm pulling for you and encourage you to try not to just walk away

[Anonymous]

Kate I think that is why he said SOON. No its not now, but in future that is where it seems to be going. People use to be able to get a job without CP's, but now not so much.

A long time ago you could get car insurance without scores, but now not so much.

[Anonymous]

seems like an option is to continue to run up bills until I am sued, and the file bankruptcy.  I think to qualify for bankruptcy you have to owe a certain proportion of your salary,  I know it sounds crazy, but it might actually help me to owe more than I do now.

[Anonymous]

This can backfire on you badly. If you know you are going to file bankruptcy and you continue to charge things that you have no intention of paying back that is fraud. Be careful with this choice.

You may be in a bad place, but the choices you make now will determine whether you get out of this situation or you end up in he-double hockey sticks.

It is your life, and you must live with the consequences of your decisions.

[Anonymous]

What is the OPs credit score right now? Is it good or terrible. How many lates, any collections?

Sometimes people just can't afford to get out of their mess and walk away because they have no other choice. It's a hard road to walk. Don't plan on having a bank account for 10 years with judgments because they take the money out of your accounts. BK is the only safe way to be able to do this. With a good job and no rent bills, I doubt they will allow you to go BK. Kinda sounds like you are stuck paying the bill.

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Lets say I don't care about my FICO score. I want to live on a cash basis. I don't want credit because I tend to overspend anyway. Lets also say I owe a lot of money on credit cards ($100,000) which I cant pay. The calls are coming in, but I am not answering. My plan is to just ignore it, let my fico score plummet, and live on cash the rest of my life. Whats the problem with that?

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I cannot fully express my opinion of your idea without using words of opprobrium that I will not use on a public forum. Either you can pay your debts by accepting a change in lifestyle, or you cannot. Morally, if you can pay then you must.

Legally, you need to talk with a lawyer, pronto. If you do nothing then you will likely get sued and your wages garnished. If you intentionally run up more debt for a while and then file bankruptcy, then you risk being convicted of bankruptcy fraud. I've been a prison ministry volunteer for some years so I have first-hand experience of prison food: it's tolerable for a few days when it was my choice to be there, but as a steady diet it would get really old really fast, my friend. Believe me you, every day you delay talking with a lawyer and/or financial adviser will make the ultimate day of reckoning worse for you.

Another thing to consider: judges and bankruptcy trustees take the debtor's apparent attitude into consideration, they can and will make your life much much much more difficult if they suspect you of trying to game the system.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

seems like an option is to continue to run up bills until I am sued, and the file bankruptcy. I think to qualify for bankruptcy you have to owe a certain proportion of your salary, I know it sounds crazy, but it might actually help me to owe more than I do now.

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It might help you to owe more than you do...but not by using the method you describe, which is running up CC bills and other debts on purpose. As someone already pointed out, that's considered fraud. And the bankruptcy trustee WILL check up on that. If you incur debts in the months before a BK for reasonable rent/mortgage payments, food, medical and transportation expenses, that's one thing. But if you start charging up $4,299 plasma TVs, a Hummer and whatnot, they will count it as fraud. And no, you can't rent a $10,000 a month penthouse and then claim your expenses went up.

My advice has already been given to you by others: call the CC companies, 'fess up that you're in over your head, and see what kind of deals they're willing to work out. Most would rather work out a deal where they forgo at least most of the interest and get 75 cents on the dollar than drive someone into bankruptcy where they may get little to nothing (and that many months or years later).

Contrary to what some über-moralists would say, I don't think you should have to be broke and struggling the rest of your life to pay these bills, but you DID buy these things knowing it was BORROWED money. IMHO, you do need to make a good-faith effort to repay at least part of the debt, even if that involves a significantly diminished lifestyle for a few years.

Can you sell any significant portion of what you bought with the CCs? I know you'd probably only get 25 to 50 cents on the dollar or so, but it would be something you could offer to the CC companies. Perhaps between getting the interest rate slashed and being able to make a down payment of, say, 20% of the debt, you could get monthly payments down to something you could afford.

But first and foremost: stop hiding. YOU created this problem, and YOU need to exert some effort to solve it.

[marty56]

I saw some info on a proposed Medical FICO score.  Since most doctors use billing companies it is not a stretch that the might lobby for it.

Most doctors now want you to pay at least the co-pay upfront but I think the MEDFICO would be used in hospitals where they could require you to make a down payment or a higher interest rate prior to being admited for a non-emergency.