What To Do About High Credit Card Debt In California
If you are wondering what to do about high credit card debt in California — debt settlement, bankruptcy and debt consolidation are three viable options. In a bankruptcy, you do clear out your debts with a fresh financial start, however your credit score will suffer for 6–10 years (making it hard to purchase a house or car) and you could lose certain assets (depending on what kind of bankruptcy you file). In a debt consolidation, sometimes you can get your interest rates lowered, but you still owe the same amount of the initial debt. I usually recommend a debt settlement to get out of high credit card debt.
How do you pay off high credit card debt in California if you simply don’t have the means to do so? A debt settlement is a viable option to get out of high credit card debt if you have more debt than you can pay off in a few years period of time or if you have experienced a financial hardship that caused you to fall behind on payments. A debt settlement is a negotiation between the credit card borrower and the creditor that the borrower will pay back an often greatly reduced amount of the debt over a period of time or in a lump sum. The creditors would rather negotiate a debt settlement with you than pay for a team of attorneys to sue you for the debt or to have you declare bankruptcy and receive nothing.
Here are some real examples of clients who decided on debt settlement as their high credit card debt solution:
- Our client owed 11 different creditors a total of $73,275. Over a period of time, we negotiated this debt down to $29,294.94 and saved our client 60% of the balance due on these accounts.
- Our client had a Bank of America business credit card with a balance in excess of $37,000. Unfortunately, the business went under, but the debt remained. Bank of America turned his account over to LTD Financial Services for collections. For this client’s high credit card debt solution, we settled our client’s account for $11,350 — which is a 70% savings on the balance due.
- Our clients owed $16,363 to American Express. He also had $70,000 in other credit card debt that he could not pay due to financial hardships. American Express referred his account to Nationwide Credit, Inc, a large debt collection agency. We negotiated a debt settlement with Nationwide for our client to pay just $6,546 of the total debt due — and the payments could be spread out over 24 months. Our client was strapped for cash, since he was making settlement payments on his other credit card debt, so we worked it out with Nationwide that our client would only have to pay $10 per month for the first few months, until he had freed up more money. Then after that the settlement payments gradually increased in amount until he could pay the off the settlement in full. We saved our client $9,817 with this debt settlement.
To read about more about how we help our clients get rid of high credit card debt, visit our debt relief success stories page. Hiring the right credit card debt lawyer can save you a lot of money. If you are not sure what to do with high credit card debt in California, contact us at 858–217–5051 for a free debt relief consultation to go over your particular debt situation and map out a plan to get you out of debt and on with your life.
Daniel R. Gamez is a debt attorney serving clients nationwide and focuses exclusively in debt relief. He is licensed to practice in all state and federal courts in California and Texas. Mr. Gamez owns and operates the Gamez Law Firm in San Diego and Los Angeles, and helps people with debt problems all over the country. For more information, please contact Daniel Gamez at 858–217–5051, daniel@gamezlawfirm.com or use our online contact form. Stay updated about the latest debt relief tips by following on Facebook and Twitter and read about client success stories on our website.
