Getting Around That Credit Card Maze

If you’re falling behind on your credit-card payments, you could be offered a sweet deal by your card issuer. That’s the takeaway from Brent Hunsberger’s story in the Oregonian over the weekend. Hunsberger spoke to several distressed borrowers who talked about being offered deals that were too good to pass up. Bank of America recently told one customer that it would accept a payment of 32 cents on the dollar. Another customer got his interest rate lowered to 0%. It would appear that card issuers want to get paid — by any means necessary — even if it means the card issuer is leaving something on the table. Something is better than a whole lot of nothing.From the Oregonian:”We have accelerated our efforts to reach out to customers earlier in the delinquency cycle before their situation becomes distressed,” says Betty Riess, a BofA spokeswoman. “We think it’s better for the bank and better for our customer.”From Jan. 1, 2008, through March 31, 2009, Bank of America modified 1.3 million credit-card loans, she says.These companies appear to be open to negotiating with debtors. Poole got his deal after being badgered by a Citibank representative for 35 minutes. The representative initially offered him a repayment plan at 10 percent interest. Poole didn’t like his pushiness and refused. “I told him I’d let the debt go.”That’s when the offer dropped to 0 percent.”He went from you have to pay it all now to 10 percent to 0,” Poole says. “I wasn’t really trying to get it down to zero.”