are there any 6-month interest free loans out there?

[Anonymous]

I'm looking to borrow a few thousand @ 0% in order to use it to pay off student loan debt.

I'm paying about $100 a month interest on those loans right now--the motivation would be to pay down a portion of the student loan debt, and save $600 by paying the interest free loan off before 6 months go by.

Can anyone help me with this? Unfortunately, I cannot pay my loans with a credit card. If I could, I would just do a 0% credit card for 12 months.

Alternately, does anyone know of a consolidation service of any kind that offers rates lower the 7%?

Much thanks for any help

[SmartCookie]

rifleman,

If you cannot find anything, check you current CC BT offers for anything good.  They can cut it as a check and wire it into your acct.  I do this with Chase and it works just like a BT, same fee, same BT rate, but I get cash to pay off as many different things I need to out of my checkbook or to pay off other cards I have charged stuff on. 

Unfortunately I know the 0% BT offers on a new card need to be done at app, so I don't think it's easy to do it as a check at that point.

I'll keep my eyes open for a good loan rate though.

[Anonymous]

Ok that sounds very cool--forgive me for not knowing about that. If I understand you correctly, you are saying I could get a 0% APR card and have them write a check to me in the form of a "balance transfer" So if I hear you right, the situation could go like this:

Step 1:
I (hopefully) get a new card with a 0% APR for 12 months on balance transfers (and hopefully low or no fees associated with the BT)

Step 2:
I get them to deposit say $5000 in my checking account. I now have a 5K balance on the card, which would need to be paid off in 12 months to avoid the high interest that would accrue at the end of 12 months.

Step 3: with discipline, I pay off the $5K balance in less then 12 months, have a new positive TL, and great utilization.

Message Edited by rifleman on 10-26-2007 09:15 AM

[Anonymous]

In addition to Chase, Citibank will also deposit money directly into your checking account.  I haven't done one of these in years, but at one time they were referred to as "ACH" transfers.  I don't know if they're still called that now. 

[SmartCookie]

Chase is great for it, when I've done it I just call in and tell them I want a BT as a check and they take my info and whammo... 3 days and it is cash in my checking acct.  I've heard that some reps do not know this can be done even with a company that does this, so if you get a no, ask them to double check with a supervisor.

rifleman keep in mind that this will of course impact UTI.  You have the logistics down pat as far as how it works but I tend to think it cannot be done on a new app since it is an ABA routing and account number.  Not sure. 

If you find a good offer, call and ask if they can do this before applying.  Note that with all the 0 balance transfer new card offers I have seen, it seems that if you do not xfer it with your original app, you do not get that rate at a later date within the time period.  I haven't needed to do it so I have not read any fine print.   

[SmartCookie]

hey rifleman ,

DH applied for WaMu oh maybe a week ago tops.  He got the card today.  On app, they had a 0% BT offer till 1/2009 but transfer fee of 3% and I believe it is not capped.  We don't need a BT but he needed the card.

Today when he got his new card, it came with BT checks with the same terms!  So, he could write himself a check right now and deposit it to checking to clear as cash.  Same 3% fee, same 0% APR till Jan 2009.

Just FYI 

Message Edited by SmartCookie on 11-03-2007 11:41 AM