Thanks for your reply. I've seen many of the problems you mention in the UK too (except for 3 which is totally evil).
I'm surprised the US doesn't have a charity offering a similar service to what we do in the UK; over here debt advice is a regulated industry and registered advisers work for a wide range of organisations - charities, local authorities etc. A friend of mine even interviewed recently for an gardening club that wanted to hire a debt adviser to help it's members.
With respect to (2) you are totally right. If you phone your bank asking to reduce the size of your payments they will jump at the chance to do it. The reason is simple - reducing payment amounts increases the lifetime of the loan and therefore increases your overall amount of debt.
well it was also an interest rate reduction as well as a payment amount reduction. I was able to take 6-8 points off from my various creditors at the time.
I'm surprised the US doesn't have a charity offering a similar service to what we do in the UK; over here debt advice is a regulated industry and registered advisers work for a wide range of organisations - charities, local authorities etc. A friend of mine even interviewed recently for an gardening club that wanted to hire a debt adviser to help it's members.
With respect to (2) you are totally right. If you phone your bank asking to reduce the size of your payments they will jump at the chance to do it. The reason is simple - reducing payment amounts increases the lifetime of the loan and therefore increases your overall amount of debt.