Tag: debt settlement
Should I Settle My Credit Card Debts? Caution: It’s a Long Road Ahead
Thinking about settling your debts? Hang tight- it may not be the best option for you. If you’re reading this, you probably have some questions about the debt settlement process. I used to work for some of the biggest debt settlement companies, and I can tell you right off the bat that you should tread with caution. Debt settlement can be an effective approach to paying off your debts, but what exactly are the ramifications? Misleading Advertisement on saving 50-60{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca} of your debt Have you seen advertisements stating that you can knock out 50-60{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca} of your overall debt amount? Seems too good to be true, right? It’s not uncommon for companies to settle your debts for as low as .20 cents on the dollar, but here&#
What To Do When You Get a 1099-C For An Old Debt
By Gerri Detweiller.Earlier this year, questions poured in from readers grappling with how to deal with 1099-Cs they received from lenders reporting “canceled” or “forgiven” debt. I wrote a number of stories addressing the issues they raised, and vowed not to touch the topic again until next tax season.But the questions kept coming in.One kept nagging at me: What should you do if you get a 1099-C for a very old debt? Though I had written one story already on that subject, the fact that I couldn’t provide readers with a clearer solution bothered me.Take Dave, for example. He told us that in 1997 he was in an auto accident. He was out of work for eight months and could not pay his auto
Debt Collection Complaints Rise
WASHINGTON, Dec, 20(UPI) — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said complaints about aggressive debt collectors had jumped 73 percent since 2008, a symptom of a sluggish economy.“We’ve seen a high level of complaints, and I think some of it is collectors realizing in hard times they may have to press that much harder to get someone to pay,” the agency’s chief debt collection lawyer Tom Pahl said.“And a lot of them are pressing,” he said.The agency handled 180,928 complaints about debt collection agencies in 2011, making it the No. 1 industry it terms of complaints filed, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.Roughly half of the complaints concern abusive phone calls. But complaints also involve legal tactics undertaken by debt collectors. Many of those complains involve
