While doing home renovations and remodeling, I opened two Home Depot cards and one at Lowes. The ‘no interest for 6 mos.’ and ‘no interest for 12 mos.’ sounded great, and I was thnking how I could pay off each “program” before the interest rates kicked in. How wrong I was! The economy went into the dumper, I lost 2 of 5 days working, and the outrageous interest rates that had accrued were piling up much faster than I could battle them.
I wound up with about $25,000 in dept on the 3 cards, at 29%!! I am about to fall behind on the payments.
Should I try to contact the companies individually and ask for rate reductions and balance reductions (so high because of the interest rates), or would I be better off with a ‘consolidation company’? I understand they charge a monthly fee for the service, so if I do it myself, will I get the same results without the fee? Do they, as a company, have more ‘bargaining power’ than I do, as an individual?
How much can I expect to shave off of the balance? …. the interest rates?
I’m currently backed-up on answering questions so I’m posting some of the questions here for you to help answer.
This is your chance to be a hero and help out this person by providing your feedback and answer to the question in the comments section below.
