How to negotiate lower pmts/deferred?

[BM3]

Helping a family member who went to the hospital because of stomach cancer, got operated, is about to get chemo and radiation, so will be working a lot less.

Has multiple CC's, all close to 70-80 utils, a car loan and personal loan. I want to get them some breathing room in apr reduction/hardship. My question is do we call backdoor or not? Frontline at Barclays was useless, they wouldn't budge saying 'there is no payment plan available to you at this time..try calling later!' 

Discover agreed to lower from $120 to $50.  Others we haven't contacted yet.  What's concerning is that the agencies that are suppose to help with this cc debt hardship haven't provided any guidance - the advice was to just call and ask. (I figured they had some govt sanctioned policies at least to nudge the cc). My fear is calling backdoor might result in closed accounts.

so what do we do, and what do we do if the cc company doesn't want to budge in lowering the payment?

also one account is 2 months late and I think this was sent to the CA - the person was in the hospital, can they reverse this with the CA?

[Gollum]

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@BM3 wrote:

Helping a family member who went to the hospital because of stomach cancer, got operated, is about to get chemo and radiation, so will be working a lot less.

Has multiple CC's, all close to 70-80 utils, a car loan and personal loan. I want to get them some breathing room in apr reduction/hardship. My question is do we call backdoor or not? Frontline at Barclays was useless, they wouldn't budge saying 'there is no payment plan available to you at this time..try calling later!' 

Discover agreed to lower from $120 to $50.  Others we haven't contacted yet.  What's concerning is that the agencies that are suppose to help with this cc debt hardship haven't provided any guidance - the advice was to just call and ask. (I figured they had some govt sanctioned policies at least to nudge the cc). My fear is calling backdoor might result in closed accounts.

so what do we do, and what do we do if the cc company doesn't want to budge in lowering the payment?

also one account is 2 months late and I think this was sent to the CA - the person was in the hospital, can they reverse this with the CA?

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The bank that issued the credit card expects the person who was given the credit card to repay the amount that was borrowed by using the credit card.  That person has a financial/legal obligation to repay the credit card debt.

Edit: Hospitals have a complicated/murky financial situation compared to credit card issuers.  The hospital may have "financial assistance" available but don't expect the same from a bank.  The US federal government has not yet managed to exert full control over healthcare in the USA so credit card issuers/banks are still separate entities with their own strategies with the profit motive in mind: money borrowed -> money paid back plus interest.

[Jnbmom]

So sorry about your family member, cancer is a terrible disease. I pray they recover.

 Most times the creditors won't even speak to you until you are late on the accounts. You can call and try your best to see if they will lower the payments temporarily but I am not sure how many will obliage.

I am not sure how much debt the are currently carrying either? But your best bet would be to contact them and let let know what is going on, hopefully some will be willing to work with your family member while they go through treatment and their road to recovery.

[Anonymous]

As much as I hate to say it, they can ask but shouldn't expect much.  Even when they do help somewhat, expect a literring of late payments and credit report blemishes.

It will be a lot better for their credit to keep making all of the minimum payments until they are back on their feet enough to deal with the debt. I'd pull what I could off the credit cards/move things around and maybe even borrow a little more if possible to keep up the minimums. Sell the car and get out of the payment, hopefully with some equity that can then go towards buying a cheap cash car & the credit cards/loans.

[BM3]

How does 30/60/90 day affect accounts? How long to get the score up if it's just 30 days? I just pulled 3 reports and it is 30 days late on Barclays, others havent reported.  The thing that's making it hard is the family member is upset with Barclays since they said a few months ago  they will work with them, and do a payment plan and basically we never heard from them again.

644 ex, 630 eq 622 tu. Where to get a loan with those scores to get under 20% apr?       But high util 76%.

[BM3]

Question from family member - does it make sense to pay anything below min payment, or then you might as well not bother and pay nothing?

[BM3]

Does anyone know about Money Managegemen International or Greenpath?  Are they worth it, or do they tie you up more, what's in it for them?