More senior citizens confront bankruptcy, credit card problems

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=46&u_sid=1062630

ATLANTA - More and more elderly Americans are relying on plastic to pay for their golden years.

The average credit card debt among people 65 and older has risen substantially, and more senior citizens are declaring bankruptcy.

"It's hugely embarrassing to most of the elderly people we talk to," said Susan Hunt, regional counseling manager for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta.

"They've prided themselves their whole lifetimes on working hard and taking care of themselves," Hunt said. "Now they are not able to do that anymore."

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[Mari333]

1. My mother is one.

She filed bankruptcy and so did my 80 yr old aunt. My disgusting republican little brother told her she didnt pray enough for help, and dad didnt provide enough for her, and the little bastard owes her 8000 dollars which he wont pay up.
I wont speak to him.
In the meantime, she lives in a house I bought and if she didnt have that she wouldnt have anything. My sister is a single mother now and lost her kids to her husband, because he left her when she told him she wouldnt vote for Bush. True. Hes an alcoholic, and she has to send the kids to live with him because there are no good paying jobs where she is.
Bushwhacked..single mothers, the elderly, all of us. That includes the soldiers, like Michael, and I am tired of waiting for justice to be done to the thugs in the WH.
Tired as hell.

[shanti]

5. yes, it's sad

that it is intergenerational. the chimp is screwing all of us with equal impunity.

[FloridaPat]

2. I had trouble because of unemployment. The damn banks

keep sending jobs overseas. I found a program where I can wipe out my credit card debt without bankruptcy and keep my credit good, just in case I get a decent job ever again.

I figure the banks are part of the problem, they can be part of the solution. Bush forgave Pakistan's debt, and a ton of other countries for his illegal war.

Here's something intersting - if the credit card debt isn't paid in 180 days, they have to cancel the debt or they loose their insurance and tax write off for the bad debt. So they write it off, collect the bad debt insurance and/or take it off their taxes, then sell it to some sucker debt collection company. Wow, I really feel sorry for those poor banks getting 20-30% interest each year.

[KC]

6. Most credit card

companies will automatically cancel your credit cards when you use a service like Credit Counselors.
I don't think they tell you that will happen either.

KC

[KayLaw]

3. My stepfather

He's retired military and has a pension and SS, but he's taken a bit of a hit because of losses in the market and the low rates CD's are paying.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. They have friends, and they all vote

Let's hope there's a huge turnout in November.

[DavidFL]

7. I really dislike these articles that do not get in depth...

...about these problems and then offer these simplistic solutions which make it sound like their advice will solve all your problems. If the consumer finance industry gets its way by pimping out Congress to pass the "Bankruptcy Reform Act" for political donations, virtually very few of these senior citizens, as well as other people, will be able to discharge their credit card debts. They will have to enter a payment plan, lasting about 5 years, to use whatever income is left over after paying personal expenses and senior creditors, to pay off credit card debts. This story says nothing about that.

Credit counseling is a very iffy prospect if you can find one that isn't a sham, as in collecting your payments but never passing them on to your creditors. Even ones that are on the level sometimes don't pay the creditor on time, which screws up the repayment plan that was negotiated with the creditor and allows them to unilaterally withdraw from the plan. In fact, creditors are not even obligated to enter into a repayment agreement with a consumer or CCCS; it's completely optional. Sometimes the counselors themselves give consumers wrong advice like suggesting clients file bankruptcy when they really shouldn't have. Another thing consumers aren't told is that a Consumer Credit Counseling notation on your credit report has just the same effect on your credit scoring as if you filed bankruptcy; so really what's the difference? Additionally, CCCS is funded, for the most part, by the credit card industry. I wish there were a reporter with the guts to cut the b.s. and tell people the honest truth about consumer credit counseling for once.

On the other hand, negotiating with a creditor yourself can be a crap shoot too. Some companies will temporarily reduce payments, or the interest rate, but others will demand a substantial up front payment before accepting lower payments and/or reducing the interest rate. Some creditors won't even negotiate at all and will just turn the account over to collections. Nothing about this in the article either.

Personally, I think the FTC website on the FDCPA is good as a basic primer on this law, but not something I would recommend as the definitive source unless you already have a legal background, a lot of time on your hands and are able to research case law for FDCPA suits filed by private individuals and understand what the opinion is saying. A better bet would be to Google for law firms that specialize in consumer law and/or represent debtors, or some consumer help websites like Bay Forum, because many have explanations of how the FDCPA works in plain English as well as summaries of recent cases. Besides that, the FTC really doesn't take abusive debt collection complaints seriously because it spends most of its time on "easy cases" like spam, phony weight loss pills and dubious 900 psychic lines. In my opinion, Congress really doesn't take abusive debt collection practices seriously either because if they did, they would permit a bigger penalty than $1,000 per FDCPA violation. To some of these companies, $1,000 is merely the cost of doing business. State attorneys general really don't take individual complaints of abusive debt collection seriously either. The general rule is, unless the loss is $50,000 or more, a state attorney general won't touch it. Which means an AG has to receive a ton of complaints about a particular company first before acting.

I guess the point of this rant is, the whole consumer finance system needs to change and the government could be doing a lot more about it than simply letting credit card companies basically write the laws for them.

[FlaGranny]

8. A start would be to roll back

the laws to where they were 50 years ago. Usury was a crime then and I believe it described usury as a rate above 10%; not the 28% it can go to now, which is a rate that mobsters used to collect.

It just always seemed so EVIL to charge the highest interest rates to the people who can least afford them and the lowest to those who can afford anything they damn well want.