If you’ve already decided to make the decision to get out of debt, then you really need to stop and be pretty proud of yourself. There are a lot of things that you could do — including not taking any action at all. However, this really doesn’t make the debt go away; it just means that you’re never going to get out of the debt that is taking your life away step by step.
Yes, it’s true — debt really slows you down. If you’re in too much debt, you can’t own a home and you really can’t get a car. Even those “bad credit car loans” that you see from time to time aren’t very good, because the interest rate is really high. However, that’s not the only place where debt really kicks you in the pants. If you have any plans of going out to get a job, you can bet that your credit is definitely going to get checked. Of course, you can always go for a career path that doesn’t require this, but these days even the basic secretarial and other lower-paying jobs are requiring a credit check. Most employers feel that if you have bad credit you’ll do anything to get out of debt, which could include steal from them. Since no employer is naturally going to want to get stolen from, they’re going to make sure that they can hire people that they can trust. It’s a flawed system, because there are a lot of people that actually have some pretty good morals and ethics — they just have bad credit. Should those people be penalized because they made a few mistakes down the path of life? No, but it’s not for us to decide — it’s up to the employer to decide who they will hire and who they will not hire.
Hang on, we do have a point that we’re coming to here. The point is simple: you want to rebuild your credit, but you definitely don’t want to chase debts that aren’t yours. Nor do you want to chase down debts that are outside the statute of limitations. About every seven to ten years your derogatory information is cleared off your credit report. This means that you get to start fresh in terms of your credit score, but you will still want to pay off your debts the best that you can. Just because you pass the statute of limitations and the seven year marker for your credit report doesn’t mean that your creditors cannot file a lawsuit against you. Even though it has little to no merit, you still have to fight it or a default judgment will be entered. Most of the time, that’s what they want anyway — because judgments go on your record, and then that’s another 7 years of trying to get it off your credit report.
We’re talking today about the need to always confirm your debt before you start paying things back. Not every debt collector is honest, and that’s a real shame. There is a strong need for recovery companies in corporate America. Indeed, if there were no collection agencies a lot of the services that you enjoy would be a lot more expensive than they are now. That’s because the company would have to take different measures to protect their property, and that can get expensive.
It’s the ones that don’t play by the law that really give the whole debt recovery industry a very bad name. However, you don’t have to live in fear of the debt collectors. [Read more…]