Whew. Just got off the phone after about an hour of calls to creditors. This was my first time ever calling someone and having to say, “I can’t make that payment”. It was tough.
Luckily, the two citicard reps I talked with were EXTREMELY helpful. Let’s review my first call about my 4 citibusiness cards:
CitiBusiness (4 cards, total balance: $26,407)
I have 4 citibusiness cards with balances of $7,747, $9,132, $4,619, and $4,909. My ‘current amount due’ is around $2500 in total. I don’t have that cash available at the moment.
I talked with a guy, explaining my situation, and we started throwing out numbers. He asked how much I could pay a month (on one card), I said, “$150″. He said the best they could do was $346 and drop (yes, drop) the interest rate to 25%. No joy there. That doesn’t work. He said I should look into a credit counciling service that would reduce the rate to 9.99% and I would pay around 1/45 of the balance. I have read so many bad stories of this…I am quite weary. Does anyone have a good story about a service that would deal with citibusiness? Thanks in advance.
The guy did however give me one great hint. I asked, “is there anyway to lower these apr’s, or amounts each month”. He said, “well, as time goes on, new options become available”. I of course asked, “well, in my case, what time will that be?”. “tomorrow” the guy says. Apparently there will be a “cycle” of some sorts, and I will have new (and better according to his unspoken hint) payment options. I hoping for a 0% hardship program like I got with…
Citi Personal MasterCard (balance: $3,598)
Yep. I talked with a very nice lady about their hardship program, after explaining my situation. I asked, “how do you calculate the payment” She said, “Well, we basically have to have a payment amount that allows for positive amortization, and that is how we base the interest rate”. That may sound like greek to alot of people, but I work in the mortgage industry, and to me that means, “the lowest payment amount will be a 0% interest rate. find the lowest amount you can pay, and that will set your interest rate at 0%”. So, I said I could pay $50/month. She said that would then give a 4% interest rate. Not bad.
But, why get 4% when you can get zero right? (I was assuming I could get 0%). So I say, “gosh, you know, I think I can only do $40/month”, she replies, “well, than your interest rate would be 1%”. She totally knows what I am doing at this point and just says, “look, $36/month will get you 0%”. Sweet! So, I signed up for their hardship program for 12 months at 0%. The payment comes directly from my checking account, and if you miss a month, you are booted! But this was a big upper that I needed today. I’m still nowhere near budget, but I have alot more calls to make tomorrow. It’s past 8pm now, and I’m still at the office.
I realize my once great (730+ when I was 22) credit score will now be shot (under 500 I imagine by the time I negotiate everything) for years. That is the price I have to pay, just to stay out of bankruptcy. Sad that it has come to this. I should have never gotten in this far…
