America, land of the opportunist.

rule #1) if it sounds to good to be true, it is!

period

you can flip that house and make a fortune.
maddoff never had a losing quarter. (until the last one)
you cant win if you dont play.
pray to the magic-dead-jew-on-a-stick and you will go to heaven.
pray to the the other guy and you will get millions of virgins when you die. (what good is a dead virgin? I have no idea.)

FREECREDITREPORT.COM IS NOT FREE!!!!

Just had to get that out there.

During my time as a bill collector in college I learned what happens to those who decide to go with a debt reduction program

- either you pay them rediculous amounts to wait (damaging your credit by increasing number of times delinquent) and then settle (paying them to do what you could do by yourself.)

or

-you're a deck about it and I would send your account to arbitration.

Of course it's not free. Just pay their fee on a charge card and then get them to get rid of the debt. Problem solved!

what_now: FREECREDITREPORT.COM IS NOT FREE!!!!

Just had to get that out there.

You're right. the free one is http://www.annualcreditreport.com

I worked at a verizon call center... it was near insanity. I couldn't imagine working at a call center again, even if it was a good company.

whoviantrekkie: During my time as a bill collector in college I learned what happens to those who decide to go with a debt reduction program

- either you pay them rediculous amounts to wait (damaging your credit by increasing number of times delinquent) and then settle (paying them to do what you could do by yourself.)

or

-you're a deck about it and I would send your account to arbitration.

I assume you were a collector for a specific company, then, as arbitration isn't usually an option for collection agencies (the guys who call you once or twice a day until you set up an acceptable payment amount/time and hunt your ass down for the money). I've had to send a couple of accounts to those guys... I felt vaguely bad about it and wouldn't do it for small amounts on the order of 50$ or so because I dealt with students (and we weren't so hard-up we needed the 10-15$ we'd get out of the company buying the debt), but if you owe somebody over a thousand bucks they're probably not going to lose a lot of sleep over you being harassed to death by the people they had to sell it to at a sharp markdown.

Redbeardo: I worked at a verizon call center... it was near insanity. I couldn't imagine working at a call center again, even if it was a good company.

I worked at a Verizon call center for a couple years. We were not in sales, but we had to plenty of times deal with people who had the service we supported added to their phone line without their knowledge, all so the sales rep could hope to get the "sell one more" points. They essentially rewarded people who tried to defraud their customers. Total crap.

Is there someone I can pay to tell me if I'm being ripped off or not?

bugmn99: Is there someone I can pay to tell me if I'm being ripped off or not?

You are.

/That'll be $50

What really irritates the hell out of me is this:

I listen to the radio for a work day and wrote down the commercials. A full 50% of them were for credit card counseling or debt reduction plans.

I'm kind of insulted that my apparently targeted demographic is mostly deadbeats.

When WHEN WHEN will Americans, individually and as a whole, realize that we cannot borrow and spend our way to prosperity? The whole culture is obsessed with a "gotta have it now, no matter what the cost" attitude, not worrying about how long it will take us to pay it off, even if it means our children and grandchildren are in debt up to their eyeballs. Americans are gullible and will pay anything for a shiny new toy/government program. This attitude is what makes stories like this one possible.

/Rant off.

Assimilate This
This attitude is what makes stories like this one possible.

Ugh, yeah. I was once friends with a guy who was in debt for numerous things, always got the latest gadgets, and boasted when he had a "healthy amount of credit card debt" (e.g. $1500) He didn't have a single dollar in savings, complained when he inevitably ran out of money before his paycheck arrived, and refused to admit that there was anything wrong with his lifestyle (it was always other people's fault for causing 'unexpected' costs, for not paying him what he was 'worth', etc.). And he's been living like this for the past ~20 years.

In my experience, these people (yeah, I've known a couple of them) always seem to be hopelessly optimistic.. I try to warn that having nothing saved and having lots of debt would be dangerous if something were to happen.. but they insist that I'm just being a pessimist. They seem to have the idea in their heads that things will get better for them, despite the fact that they do nothing to change it. They wait and wait for this to happen and, even through promotions and better paying jobs, it never does. If they get paid more then they simply start spending more. Again, it's always some external force that is causing them hardship rather than their own decisions. They think of themselves as intelligent when they have money, yet think of themselves as intelligent-but-helpless victims when they're waiting for their next paycheck. They act like children and, I'm beginning to think, need to be treated as such.

You mean a guy making $30,000 a year, really CAN'T pay off a $100,000 mortgage in 2 years?????

Pick: You mean a guy making $30,000 a year, really CAN'T pay off a $100,000 mortgage in 2 years?????

Math is hard.