This writing will help you with reviewing your options

My name is Steve Bis and I've been assisting people that are in debt with their credit cards for a considerable amount of time and realize the negative consequences it has on their lives. When you have credit card debt and think that this matter is out of control, you would be smart to make a choice on what to do and make it quick. You don't want to put it off until it is too late. As many of you bye now already know is that the creditors are not very easy to deal with when you contact them with issues with your statement. It's very exciting the way it works because when you initially obtain the card they are very polite people when you talk to them. Then if you contact them to argue against a late or over limit charge and attempt to have it , they may let you off once a year, if you are lucky. When it comes down to it what choices do you have? It's not like you can stop making payments on your rent/mortgage or other requirements for your family to make it with day to day expenses.

The credit card industry made over 17 billion dollars in controversial fees in 2006 and it will be significantly higher this year. Now I am pretty sure that it has happened to you, where you've gone and open your credit card statement only to discover that your APR has just about doubled or even tripled. It is hard enough to try and maintain payments with 10% or even the 7.9 % interest that they are charging on your accounts. How are you suppose to pay for the elevated payments now? It was painstaking enough to manage before the interest was raised. This is exactly why U.S. citizens are searching for other options such as debt settlement vs. credit counseling, or bankruptcy. If you are not familiar with any of your options then I will offer you a little information on them.

Consumer Bankruptcy

Before 2005 bankruptcy was to be used for debtors who were going through serious financial hardships. Regrettably it was abused by thousands of debtors who were trying to avoid paying their debts. They didn't want to take responsibility for their actions. The credit card companies were fed up with this so they pushed to have the laws updated. It is now known as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection act of 2005. This would make it more difficult for most consumers to file for help. Bankruptcy should only be considered as your very last choice after you have explored every other debt relief method. Also you should contemplate the consequences that might come back later on down the road. You would have to find a lawyer, go to court and that would cost you a substantial amount of your hard earned income. There is also the problem of it being on your credit report for a long time. When you filling out any significant application or document you by law have to answer yes when inquired about your previous bankruptcy, so this does have a very negative long lasting effect on your credit.

Credit counseling

Everyway you look, either on TV or the radio, you will hear about credit counseling. A credit counseling firm will attempt to get the credit card companies to reduce the APR on your credit accounts. You then make one monthly payment to the consumer credit counseling firm and they then pay each one of your creditors on your behalf. The fallback to this method is even though they reduce your interest charge on your credit card accounts you might still pay back as much as 125% of what you actually owe.

This is because joining this kind of program you will still be paying back what the full original balance was plus some of the interest for around possibly five years or more. Almost half of the consumers that are in these programs don't graduate from the program for one reason or another. Another downfall to credit counseling is that if you have a money problem and are short on your monthly payment they will kick you off of the program without delay. They will also bump up your interest back up and the creditors could keep you off the program for at least one year and on some occasions even longer. This could put you right back to where you began, if not in a tougher situation.

Debt Negotiation (also known as debt settlement)

This is the option where you can save the most amount of money. A honest debt settlement company will save you at least 40% of what you owe. The 40% should include all of their charges. The same with consumer credit counseling, you will hear a lot of TV and radio ads all the time. These companies are opening up everywhere across the United States. Some of these companies try to make it appear like they have a magic wand and are going to make all your debt disappear overnight.

There are even some companies that try to use religion to gain the trust of debtors. Whatever organization you are going to hire it is your responsibility to do research on them. You can always begin with the BBB (Better Business bureau). You may be able to discover quite a bit about a company from the Better Business Bureau. If you discover that a company has only been in business for a little while and has a lot of complaints against them, then you know to avoid them. Another thing to keep an eye out for is how much time has the company been around. Some companies only survive one or two years before they get terminated or get caught ripping people off. Then some of them only stick around to make as much as possible and close down just to open up right next door under a new company name.