Credit cards, did they really double the minimum payments?

Luckily I don't have a huge balance on my credit card, but I was just listening to a radio commercial saying to call credit counselors if your over $2000 in credit card debt, and it's going to get tougher to make the miminum because they're doubling that amount, etc. Did they really do that or is that a scare tactic to get you to call their credit couselor place?

No clue, but we had our bank account suddenly frozen over a 3k credit card debt.
Thankfully we settled it for $1900 and we weren't strapped doing so.

Yes, I heard that a while back on the radio. I think the purpose is to try to help people get out of debt.

Here's a link I found on the subject.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...ts/P117014.asp

The minimum payment is supposed to come up on high balances. But there is a good reason to this. If you make the minimum payment the whole time then you will only be paying off the interest acrued for that month and could be putting yourself further and further in debt each time you pay the minimum. The idea is that you now pay the interest AND you pay down a little bit of the balance.

Growing up our family suffered from such mistakes. Bankrupcies are not fun for parents and the children.

I remember reading about that in the newspaper. They are required to raise the minimum payment by the Feds. They feel that too many people are in credit card debt are only making the minimum payment & never get out of debt. By making the minimum pmt higher, they will pay it off faster. I found an article here... consumeraffairs.com

here is my understanding and it contains info from all of the above sources and others...

minimums used to be 1.5% of the balence now they are 3% which is double/.//

my caution to you is if minimums are all you can pay get some credit help... because likely the intrest is 22% and your paying 3//

Originally Posted by sharky

my caution to you is if minimums are all you can pay get some credit help... because likely the intrest is 22% and your paying 3//

Click to expand...

Yes I completely agree. Get help before its to late. Its a downward spiral unfortunately. Attack the one with the highest interest first with whatever you can afford and pay the minimums on the others. Then when you have that one gone then pay down the next highest interest.

Your right......abuse of credit cards got me when I was much younger. It's a catch 22, but luckily that's not the case now. It happens all the time. It's so hard to live nowadays without them. I have found to just carry one credit card with you and use it only in emergencies.......

It's a total scare tactic used by shady "credit councelors" and even shadier mortgage companies. The percentage that must be paid on the principal of the loan (credit card balance) has doubled, but most decent credit card companies were already requiring that much (percentage of balance) or more. My minimum payment has not gone up one bit. Shady credit card companies that prey on those with little or no credit then charge outrageous fees and APRs with low minimums (in order to keep charging those outrageous APRs and fees) are the targets of this legislation.

BTW, the law took effect in January, I believe. If you haven't seen an increase, you won't.

No credit cards here! haven't had any for almost three years now... no I didn't pay them off, I just stopped paying them-ack! 2 were written off and the third is still after me. At age 25 I had almost $30,000 in credit card debt- yes I know how to spend! about 10,000 of that was my honeymoon and of course my ex is not helping me to pay off the one at all I keep hoping they'll forget about me, but I'm not real optimistic. Whenever my credit clears up,probably in 5 years or so , I'll get a small credit card for emergencies and to help me rebuild my credit, but I'll NEVER go credit card crazy again

Wow Katie, where did you go on a honeymoon?

Originally Posted by kittylover4ever

Wow Katie, where did you go on a honeymoon?

Click to expand...

a week in Hawaii and boy did we have a blast!

We hadn't had a credit card for quite a few years and thought it was all fine and dandy ... just a debit card.

Then my dad died and I found out quickly that you can't rent a car without a "credit" card. I only found one who would rent using a debit card and I think now they have changed their policy.

Anyway, that was a good lesson to have one for emergencies only. I took out a card in my name and have had it for 2.5 years now. I use it occasionally to build my credit, but I always pay the balance off every month. Credit cards are great if you can make them work for you. But too easy a trap for some/maybe most people

I got a card last year and now I'm in trouble with it. I origianlly planned to use it to build my credit, paying the balance each month. Then I ended up using it as a "payroll advance" for when I was broke but payday wasn't for a few more days yet. By the time the bill came in, I was usually broke again. I'm not very good at managing money.

The credit line was only $300, but now I owe about $500 on it with fees and stuff. And even though I cancelled the card they are still charging me $29 a month if I'm late, and usually about $30 is all I can afford to send. So I'm treading water! Then I sent them a check for $100 which they cashed and never applied to my account. I called them and the lady got really nasty about it, and told me "This is YOUR credit! This goes on YOUR credit report! You NEED to pay your bills!" Well sorry, but when I send $100 I'd like to see it freaking applied to my account!

I'm to the point of just wanting to ignore them, they've got bigger bills to chase after than my measly $500. But we want to sell our house next year and I'm afraid it will interfere with buying another house. So now I need to call my bank and get a copy of the check and go through a huge runaround to get them to apply the stupid $100, and in the meantime they'll probably have attached another $100 worth of fees and garbage to it.

I've decided that credit card companies are all a bunch of frauds out to steal money from people who don't have much to start with (and I told the lady that, too) and I'll NEVER have another one. I can for sure tell you what card isn't "in my wallet" that's for sure!

Amber