Last night, I watched an old episode of The Suze Orman Show on iTunes (she has free podcasts every week!). It was the "Bank Bullies" episode where she talked about how credit card companies were raising the minimum amounts due on card balances and other things they do to screw people over.
One piece of advice she gave was to do a debt consolidation and transfer all of your credit card debt onto one card. That way, you only have one payment each month with hopefully a lower interest rate. It's just like consolidating student loans, but instead it's credit card debt. Suze said the best way to do this was to go through a credit union because they offer lower interest rates.
So...I called one of the local credit unions today, and the credit union today, and to make a long story short, they couldn't help me. I have about $12,000 in credit card debt on three different cards that I'd like to consolidate. But in order to do so, I have to apply and qualify for a credit card at that amount or higher. QUALIFY? There's no way I'd qualify for that amount, so I stopped the application process and went back to the drawing board.
To me, the whole thing doesn't make sense. All I want to do is take the current debt I have and dump it onto a new card so that I can reduce the number of payment I have each month. Sounds simple right? I kind of understand where the credit union is coming from (they can't guarantee I'll use the credit card to pay off my debt, which is why qualifying is important), but still!
I just want to consolidate my debt, and NOT with one of those debt consolidation services! If anyone out there knows of any good accounts, programs or credit cards I can start to consolidate my credit card debt, please let me know!
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