Tips And Guide For Debt And Loan Management

There are times when we are really short of cash, not necessarily we are broke but often times most of our assets take form in land, house, stock and bonds that may take time to be converted into usable money. In the emergency moment when we need to cover a medical bills or you need to get bad credit loans rather quickly, while in the meantime your credit card has reached its limit, a quick access on unsecured installment loans can be really helpful and valuable.

When you apply for a loan or cash advance in conventional, they usually require a lot of documents like phone bills, pay stubs and bank statement. A good service that provide unsecured installment loan should be paperless, which allow you to avoid unnecessary and boring paperwork, faxing and queues. They usually give you a web address where you can fill a secure application form and you get the cash rather quickly, preferably in a day or so.

One thing that makes this service different is that it ignores your credit record, because one of its purposes is to help people with bad credit report. You should be wary of hidden charges and fee; you should only be charge with the agreed interest rate. You should disagree with any prepayment penalties which make it easy for you lower the cost of loan by paying your loan early.

There are many good financial services that offer unsecured installment loans for people who need quick cash. I will choose one of those services, called Thinkcash. They can provide you $250 to $2500 relative quickly. Actually, this company is quite different than a Payday Loan or Cash Advance Company, due to the fact that the offer lower rates, which are about 25-75% lower than payday loans. They also provide flexible and convenient payment options, which is unlike ordinary Payday loans. The loan can be paid in several installments or can be paid off as a whole without any penalties. Therefore, you have more control and flexibility with your financial planning.

The cost of the loan depends on the approved loan size. It may cost you $1.00 per day for each $100 loaned cash (with 365% APR) for smaller and shorter term loan to $0.25 per day for each $100 loaned cash (with 87% APR) for longer-term loans and customer with good payment history. Although the rates is lower than the rates charged by most short-term lenders, they are higher than other credit forms, so it is strongly advised that you pay off your loan as fast as possible.

After reviewing your report, you may find several items that you feel are incomplete or incorrect and should not be on your credit report. As with unfair collection activities, inaccurate credit reporting caused Congress to step in and try and clean up the mess. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) now dictates how credit information in this country is accumulated and disseminated.
The FCRA permits you to challenge any entry on your credit report and force the credit-reporting agency to investigate and prove the item.
Write a certified letter to the agency in question (so you can verify when the letter was received) and explain the nature of the dispute. Give the agency your name, Social Security number, and current address. Explain the problem with the report and attach a copy of the report to your letter.
If you can prove that an item is in error, the problem will be easier to fix. For example, Muriel had bounced a check to Spencer’s Hardware, but she cleared up the debt a few months later. When she reviewed her Experian credit report, she saw that the debt was listed as unpaid. Muriel found her receipt for the payment, photocopied it, and sent it along with a letter to Experian, demanding that the item be corrected. It was. The credit-reporting agency must investigate any item that you dispute, even ones that you cannot prove are false. The bureau must then report back to you the results of its investigation within a month or so. If the bureau cannot verify that its version of the disputed item is correct, then, by law, the bureau must remove it from your credit report.
Now, you can probably see where there is a lot of room for abuse here. Some people use this law to dispute every negative item on their report, even if they know items are correct, hoping that the credit-reporting agency will be unable to prove the veracity of at least some of them. However, if a credit-reporting agency suspects that this is your intent, it can legally refuse to investigate a dispute. So challenge only those items that are disputable or unverifiable.
It may take several letters to get an item removed. If a month has gone by from the date the agency received your initial letter, and you have received no response, then write again and demand that the item be taken off your credit report. It is critical that all correspondence is in writing so that you have a paper trail. If an agency refuses to remove an item that you think should not be on your report any longer, then you have several options:

1. You can always go back to the original creditor and see whether it will delete the item. But, unless you have paid the debt in full, removal using this method is unlikely.
2. You can contact the proper authorities. File a complaint with your state’s Department of Consumer Affairs or Attorney General or with the Federal Trade Commission. This option requires time and patience in order to get the item(s) removed and your credit cleared.
3. Your final, and probably best, choice is to sue in small claims court. The FCRA permits lawsuits against both the original creditor and the credit agency (whomever you think is to blame) for reporting incorrect information. If you win, the FCRA allows you to receive money damages for your hassles.

Common errors on credit reports include the following:

• Outdated information. Other than a bankruptcy (which can legally stay on your credit report for 10 years), any derogatory information can stay on your report for only seven years. If something older than that is on your report, it can and should be removed.
• Inaccuracies. Credit agencies make many mistakes. An incorrect mark showing a late payment, a repossession that never occurred, or a mistaken tax lien is not unheard of. In order to rid your report of any mistakes, the first thing you will need to do is to get a copy of your report. Make sure you get a copy from each of the three major creditreporting agencies; there could be mistakes on any one of them. A credit report normally costs about $10. If you have recently been denied credit, insurance, or employment because of a credit report, you can also get a free copy from any of the credit-reporting agencies.

I’m sure you know that everyone has some sort of history about their credit. There are 3 major institutions/companies that constantly keeping track on your financial habits, they are Experian (a.k.a. TRW), Equifax and Trans Union. Each company has a record about you. Credit reports are valuable to new creditors because they show your past financial patterns.
Credit reports include your

• Name
• Social Security number
• Address
• Bill-paying history
• Total indebtedness
• A list of people who have made credit inquiries about you
• A list of who has and has not given you credit
• A list of your current debts

A lot of incorrect information shows up on a lot of credit reports. The big three credit reporting agencies receive more than a billion pieces of credit information every month and produce more than 500 million credit reports every year. The chances are quite high that mistakes on your report are negatively affecting your financial life.

A final option is to merely take no action at all. If you ignore your creditors’ threats, they may make a lot of annoying phone calls and threaten to sue you, but, as we have said, if the debt is not too large, they usually eventually forget about you. If you live month-to-month and have few assets, you are what lawyers call an “empty pocket” or “judgment proof.” No creditor would waste money suing you because the likelihood of ever getting any money back is remote.
In most cases, your creditor will probably write off your debt as uncollectable and get a tax break for it. After seven years, the bad debt will fall off of your credit report.

Maybe the best part of the FDCPA is that it allows you to force the creditor to stop all phone calls. If you have ever been subject to a pit-bull creditor who would not leave you alone, you do not have to be told what a relief this is.
To stop the harassing phone calls, write the creditor a “cease and desist” letter. This letter tells the creditor that he is to stop all further communication with you regarding this debt. Once received, the creditor must leave you alone. Although a creditor retains the right to sue you, he cannot write or call anymore.
Here is what your letter should look like:
Knowing what your rights are and being able to force a collection agency to stop harassing you with one of these letters should make your life much easier and less stressful.

Collection agency harassment got so bad that it took congressional action to rein it in. The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) is a federal law that regulates what creditors may and may not do when trying to collect a debt.
The essence of the FDCPA is that debt collectors must behave in a reasonable manner
and are forbidden from harassing you. Impermissible actions may include

• Calling at the wrong place or the wrong time. A bill collector cannot call before 8:00 A.M. or after 9:00 P.M. If you so desire, the collector cannot call you at work.
• Making inappropriate threats. The collection agency representative cannot use foul language or threaten you with violence, seizure of assets, or imprisonment.
• Using other forms of harassment. The debt collector cannot misrepresent who he is or what he is calling about, cannot repeatedly call you, and is forbidden from publishing your name and the nature of the debt. Knowing what is acceptable creditor behavior can pay tremendous dividends.

If an annoying creditor persists in calling you at work, tell him to stop. If he threatens to have your car sold to pay the debt, tell him such threats are illegal. Make sure that when you speak with an annoying creditor, you use the words “Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, you cannot ….” This phrase lets him know that you know what you are talking about.
If a collection agency continues to violate the law after being told to stop, you have two options:

1. Contact the proper authorities. The Federal Trade Commission polices the FDCPA. Contact the office closest to you and explain the nature of the problem. State authorities, such as your Attorney General, State’s Attorney, or Department of Consumer Affairs, also may investigate a serious violation of the law.

2. Sue. The FDCPA permits lawsuits for violations of the act. If proven, the violator could be liable for any out-of-pocket expenses you incurred as a result of the violation, penalties up to $1,000, and possible attorneys’ fees and costs. Such a suit would normally be brought in your local small claims court.

There is much collection agencies cannot do. Can they garnish your wages? No. They may threaten to if you do not pay that bill, but the truth is that they cannot do it.
There are only three instances when a creditor can garnish your wages:

• If you owe on a student loan, special rules allow that creditor to garnish your wages.
• If you owe child support, your monthly payment can be garnished from your paycheck.
• Any other creditor can garnish your wages only when it has sued you, won the suit, and received permission from the court to garnish. You will know if this is happening to you.

If none of these situations applies to you, you should understand that when a creditor threatens to garnish your wages, he is blowing smoke. Can collection agencies have you thrown in jail? No. Debtor’s prison was outlawed in this country long ago. Can they threaten you? Sure. But so what? Most of their threats are hollow. They tell you that if five post-dated checks are not received by the next day, a suit will be filed. Or they might say that if $500 is not in hand by Friday, your bank accounts will be seized. Baloney.
The truth is, most of their threats are empty, and there is no deadline. They make it all up. If the deadline passes, nothing happens. The threat and deadline are nothing more than tactics they use to try and get some money out of you. Do not fall for their threats.
Will the collection agency sue you? Probably not. Lawsuits for consumer debts happen in a surprisingly small number of cases. Depending upon the size of your debt, it is normally too expensive for the original creditor or the collection agency to file suit. And even if it did win a judgment, what is the likelihood that it will ever collect on it? These lawsuits are usually just not cost-effective. That is why collection agencies prefer to make threats: They’re cheaper.

When you cannot pay your bills in full, another option is to negotiate with your creditors and see whether any of them would be willing to accept less than full payment. Here is how to do it: Write a letter explaining to your creditor that you would like to settle your account in full, but that you are unable to do so. Your letter should go on to offer a settlement for an amount less than you owe. Why would a creditor accept such a proposal? Because, you explain, if it does not, you will have no choice but to declare bankruptcy, in which case, it will get nothing. Fifty cents on the dollar starts to look like a pretty good deal. It is important to realize that if this letter does not work, or you otherwise ignore your creditors, you will end up with a very negative credit report, not to mention the fact that you will lose peace of mind and future credit. If you can settle these debts before things get out of hand, you are better off.

The first thing to ask yourself is whether you are dealing with the original creditor or a collection agency. As a general rule, original creditors are not nearly as difficult to deal with as collection agencies.
Who you are dealing with usually depends on how late you are with your bill. After a debt is more than say, six months old, the original creditor will probably sell it at a discount or give a percentage of any recovery to a collection agency. Your chances of settling your problem reasonably and with a modicum of dignity are best when you deal with the original creditor. The department store or doctor will usually try to work with you to settle your outstanding debt. The plan usually means that you make regular monthly payments for an amount you can afford. If you do make a concerted effort to pay your bill, even at something like $25 a month, the original creditor will usually accept the payment, albeit begrudgingly. It is when you stop paying altogether that creditors become upset.