Hi! I'm going to be honest here. I had no credit until 1999 (age 32) due to low income. When I finally got credit I kept up the payments OK for two and a half years, until I went homeless by choice for personal reasons and quit paying - no forwarding address. From 2002 to 2006 I was homeless (untraceable) but somehow managed to get credit again from 1st Premier and Fingerhut when I became "homeful" again. This was enough to bring the old debts out of the woodwork. I ended up paying off two collection agencies and two other banks I owed never came at me. One collection agency (Portfolio) tried but they were past the Statute of Limitations when they got to me so I blew them off.
While I was paying the other agencies, I defaulted on 1st Premier (around 2009), but when one agency debt was satisfied in 2010, I got an Orchard card and stupidly defaulted on that too almost right away. In 2011 I was debt-free but not by choice, LOL!
In the next couple of years, I wised up, joined Credit Karma, and had a major valuable thought: It made no sense to fail to pay a bank card unless you literally had no money, since you can charge it again after making the payment. However, I couldn't get credit for the life of me until I ponied up $200 for a secured Capital One in 2013.
This time I did things "right". In fact, I paid in full every month when the Capital One was the only card I had. Six months later I started getting pre-approved for others. Credit One, First Premier (Even though I never repaid them the first time!), First National/Savings/Blaze, Verve, Now I was cooking with gas! I didn't max them out but I didn't pay in full either. My balances hovered around 50-60 percent. I paid as much as I could each month, churning my entire income except rent through the cards. Balances grew slowly, but were balanced out by credit limit increases so I didn't worry as much as I should have.
In 2015, I started getting prime cards: Discover, Barclay, Chase, Walmart, BP. Around this time I got an Avant debt consolidation loan but I was stupid. Instead of closing at least the subprime accounts, I kept them all open. I don't need to say what happened. 13 of 15 credit cards constantly maxed out and min paid, feed to death, $16,000 in debt (about a year's income), rent plus minimum debt payments slightly more than my monthly income. Thank God I have a roommate who helps me out, somewhat in cash but mostly in kind, to the tune of about $200 a month on average.
I have considered bankruptcy, but have recently recieved a solicitaton from Strategic Financial Solutions in New York. They say I can consolidate as many or as few debts as I wish, get them down to 0 APR, and pay them off in a few years. I understand this is a modification program and will probably ding my score, but there's little left to ding. (I went from CK 675 to CK 560 in the past two years even though I've never missed a payment since 2013.)
I talked with the guy from SFS today, he said I could consolidate the subprimes for about $275/mo. for 3 years, as opposed to the $600/mo. for them unmodified. I would still be able to keep the prime cards, with total minimums of about $250/mo. This leaves me enough room to breathe and maybe occasionally pay double the minimum on some cards.
Yes, I learned an important lesson and won't go overboard again, at least not anytime soon.
But something seems off. I've Googled the company and got mixed results. There's also a plethora of companies with similar names and that makes me skittish. Has anyone else here used SFS, and were they served as agreed, or were they ripped off?
Also, in my situation, is modification or bankruptcy a better solution?
