It’s often not a parent’s first thought to check the credit report of their minor child, however, it may now become a necessity. Not because a child may fraudulently be using credit without their parents’ knowledge but because scammers may have stolen their unused Social Security number and identity. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) put out a warning last week ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, Moved to Ohio 3 months ago, from CT where we were delinquent on our upside home mortgage and managed to renegotiate the second mortgage to 20% of the total, then were able to sell our house and relocate. We were able to find a private individual to finance our new house for us as our credit was shot….we ... Read More »

“Dear Lewis, Made many not so smart mistakes which put me into serious credit card debt over the past 8 years or so. Followed by some dental work (multiple root canals) that had to be paid with credit card. Last year, had an emergency appendectomy that ended up in an medical insurance mess up. Ended up with 15K bill on ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I have recently taken over management of finances and bill paying from my wife. I always knew we had some lingering credit card debt that had been following us since college, but I had no idea what the real situation was. At this point we are $51,000 in credit card debt. We have a mortgage, a HELOC, and ... Read More »

Let’s face it: when it comes to getting credit, most students have it easy these days. Most college students do get credit cards — and plenty of them if they want. According to a recent study for the Education Resources Institute and the Institute for Higher Education Policy, many college students have credit cards and some of them got their ... Read More »

Becca “Dear Steve, My husband and I are in the process of a divorce. I have a credit card in my name only that has a a large amount of debt on it. In our divorce settlement he is accepting 80% of this debt responsibility (he knows it is his fault it is on there). What is the best way ... Read More »

CNN Money’s recent article, “Debt collectors get nasty” showed some real insight into the current debt collection process in this country. They touched on information reported by the Federal Trade Commission, FTC, about the number of complaints of debt collector harassment issues on the rise. Apparently these debt collectors haven’t heard of a little thing called the “Fair Debt Collection ... Read More »

Congratulations! You’ve made it through the starving student years and now you’re ready to start a job and earn some real money. You’re probably thinking about all the things you’ll be able to buy, places you’ll go and things you’ll be able to do when those paychecks start rolling in. Not so fast. If you’re like all the people who ... Read More »

At GetOutOfDebt.org, we help thousands of people with too much debt. So you probably figure we’d think credit cards are terrible, right? Wrong! Credit cards can be a great tool and can even save you money if you’re smart about how you use them. That doesn’t mean charging up a storm on things you can’t afford, or even using your ... Read More »

Having trouble getting approved for a credit card? Do you have bad credit? Maybe a debit card is the answer. Today, more and more banks and financial institutions are rushing to issue their customers debit cards. In fact, many of these companies routinely issue “enhanced” ATM cards that can also be used as debit cards to make purchases. This article ... Read More »

Terrell “Dear Steve, 2 1/2 years ago my car broke and I made the mistake of charging car rentals to get back and forth to work on my credit card. A $1500 debt climbed to over $4000 within 2 months. Up until January of this year I was able to make the payments. At that point the payments climbed to ... Read More »

Antoine writes in to the Get Out of Debt Squirrel and asks: I don’t have credit card dept of any kind. I’ve never filed bankruptcy. I have bills on my credit report some of them I’m unaware of and the others are overdue bills. How do I go about solving the problem to get it off my credit report? How ... Read More »

Bailout plan to perpetuate our house of cards Times Herald-Record, NY - 56 minutes ago By Christian Livermore The average client who seeks help at the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central New York has $47000 in credit card debt and ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I am a college student with 2 years left of undergraduate school and then one more year for grad school. I got a credit card last summer and was doing fine until school started. I couldn’t find a job so my bill racked up to around $850. I still am unable to find a job and I am ... Read More »

Counseling seen as little help in bankruptcies Columbus Dispatch, OH - 4 hours ago Transferring credit-card debt to a card with a zero percent interest rate offer, for example, is nearly impossible for someone with delinquent payments. ... Read More »