Mark Carolin

Debt negotiation helps you to clear off your debts and lead a debt free life. If you have been irregular with your payments and missed 3 or more of them, it is time you start thinking of negotiating your debts. Debt negotiation is a good option for you if your debt account has been sold to a collection agency.

In debt negotiation, your outstanding balance is reduced by as much as 40% to 60%. You can opt for debt settlement in case you have the following debts to settle.

1. Store cards

2. Credit cards (unsecured)

3. Personal loans

4. Payday loans

5. Checks that have bounced

6. Medical bills

If you are hiring the services of a debt negotiating company, they work on your behalf and negotiate with the creditors to lower your outstanding balance. The debt negotiation firm evaluates your financial situation to find out if debt settlement is the right option for you or not. A budget is worked out so that you can curtail your other expenses and save some money for making payments towards debt negotiation.

A trust account is created into which the payments are made instead of paying them to the creditors. When there is enough money to start negotiating with the creditors, debt negotiation is initiated. Once the creditors agree to lower your outstanding balance, you start making payments to the creditors. A trust account usually doesn’t earn any interest but you regularly receive detailed statement indicating the monetary movements that have taken place in the trust account.

Effect of debt negotiation on credit score

Your credit score is an important indicator of your financial health. If you have a good credit score, it increases your chances of availing fresh credit in future. Not only this, you also stand a better chance of availing the various financial privileges some of the creditors offer, the rate of interest being one of them.

Since you stop making payments to the creditors for sometime and make payments into the trust account, your credit score gets damaged for a brief period. The score drops till the time your creditors don’t receive any payments from you. However, once your payments get regularized again, your credit score starts increasing.

Debt negotiation firms-check their credibility

If you are taking professional help, the debt negotiation firm you hire determines to a large extent, how successfully you complete the debt negotiation program. Prior to hiring their services, it is better to check their credibility. Try to search for the past records of the negotiating firm. Don’t settle for the firm that asks for fees before they actually do anything for you.

How do you benefit from debt negotiation?

Debt negotiation can be of immense benefit and can help you to lead a debt free life. Once you enroll for a debt negotiation program, the number of collection calls made by debt collectors is greatly reduced. You are entitled to pay less than what you owe, you become regular with your debt payments and finally you are able to lead a debt free life.

When you think about “credit score”, what do you think of first? Which aspects of “credit score” are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

How do credit bureaus compute one’s credit scores?

A lot of credit reporting bureaus or agencies gathers information on the subject of the debtor’s credit history or files from reliable private and public sources. They also collect data from the creditors who extended the loan to the debtor.

Accordingly, the information is clustered into five sets or categories with the corresponding percentages which reflect the importance of each category in the final computation of scores, namely: (1) Owed Amount – 30%, (2) History of Payments – 30%, (3) Duration of Credit Record – 15%, (4) Nature or Kinds of Credit Currently in Use – 10%, and lastly (5) Latest Credit Inquiries – 10%.

Generally, these credit bureaus calculate the debtor’s credit score using a three figure number which range from 300 up to 850. The higher the credit score, the better chance of acquiring low interest rates for the loan being applied for and a better opening for wealth accumulation.

The industry of credit-scoring has been generating different opinions and wide-spread reactions to the public. The consumers fear that credit-based rating or scoring will pose a negative impact or unjust rating to them and will affect their economic standing and other financial transactions.

Some credit bureaus justify their purpose of gathering information and making credit rating or scoring. For them, their work is to help lending businesses formulate efficient economic decisions.

The information about “credit score” presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about “credit score” or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.

Others create a distinction between the credit-based scores of insurance companies which predicts the loss of propensity and the credit scores which is simply to predict the worthiness of a certain person to pay.

A distinctive company should develop its own credit-base rating or scoring algorithm to serve better the consumers. Here are some of the strategies adopted in credit scoring:

1. Forming a Credit Assistance Group/Team – they are the quick response group that will assist consumers calling through toll-free numbers. The public would certainly like to know the effect of credit records to their application of loans, mortgage, employment and/or insurance transactions.

Also included to the team’s responsibility is the making of reports on the personal credit insurance of the consumers. This report will show the consumer’s variable score and the comparison with the aggregate scores

In addition, the team will consider previous credit records and the possible effect of extraordinary events which resulted to low scoring.

They will help the consumers by directing or referring them to the right people who will be of much help to them in taking good care of their credit problems. They will also help in correcting errors in the credit records of the concerned consumer.

2. Revising a New Method in Credit Scoring- this simplified method uses nine variables instead of the usual sixteen. Their algorithm will compute the credit scores by designating or assigning 100 as a foundation score. From these base score, they either add or minus making the range of score from 50 up to 250. The lower the score, the more desirable it is as credit scores.

3. For those consumers with no credit records or whose credit histories are lacking, they will create a program which will specifically cater to these groups of creditors to somehow uplift their credit ratings.

With the continued research and study on the needs of the consumers, these credit scoring bureaus will truly make a difference to the lending and/or insurance world.

Now you can understand why there’s a growing interest in “credit score”. When people start looking for more information about “credit score”, you’ll be in a position to meet their needs.