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There are several items to ponder if you are considering moving balances from several different cards to a single credit card for debt consolidation reasons:
There are negatives to conducting business with debt elimination businesses. Transacting with one of these late night advertisers may lower your financial obligations a bit, but you'll find it quite hard to get credit again anytime in the near future. Money owed that is disregarded by your creditors will be treated by the Internal Revenue Service as income that may be taxed, so you'll have to pay taxes on the unpaid debts. If you haven't been paying off your monthly debts, it's going to wreck your credit score. Creditors do not care for customers who do not pay. If you do not pay your bills for any reason, you're going to be reported as one who does not pay to the credit agencies. Debt elimination may seem like a smart idea until you realize that your creditors are not terribly eager to settle for half of the total amount you owe. Your debt elimination service is going to ask you to send money to them, rather than your financial institutions and to ignore any communication from your creditors. After your bills have gone unpaid for a while, they will then negotiate with your creditors in order to encourage them to reduce your total debt. If you have been making payments each month, even if you have only been sending in the minimum amount, your financial institutions are happy. Credit card banks or credit unions make plenty of profit from people who pay only the minimum amounts. As long as you are making minimum payments, your creditors have no motive to negotiate with you.
These offers may seem appealing, but remember - these products are offered by the lender or creditor for their advantage, not yours. They are marketing these opportunities to you because they think that they will make profit from it.
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