Personal Finance Beware "new" debt consolidation companies |
- Beware "new" debt consolidation companies
- My wife’s ex-boyfriend (fiancé at one point too) died a few months ago. Guess who was the sole beneficiary on his life insurance policy?
- Chase promoting bi-weekly mortgage payments - here's why I avoided taking the bait
- Employee’s car fell off the tow truck
- I just lost my entire life's savings to online fraud, what do I do now?
- Paying off mortgage early with new tax laws.
- How do you approach debt as a couple?
- Received Unrecognized 1099-MISC
- Dad died :( What to do with the house, bills, etc?
- Planet Fitness requiring Direct Withdrawals from checking / savings for automatic payments
- Should I pay for TurboTax Deluxe so I can file my student loan interest payment?
- Freeing Up Extra $250/Month: What's My Best Option
- Credit impact of re-upping expired mortgage pre-approval
- Debt from Family Member
- Why did my 1098 from student loans increase the size of my refund but the 1098 from my Mortgage payments didnt?
- IRS denied return because of my incorrect (actually correct) EIN
- My financial situation is too precarious, how do I start to fix it?
- What to use when you outgrow mint?
- My mother (still alive) has a whole life insurance plan. The face amount right now states that it is current death benefit of $50k, but net cash value is $42k. Premium is $100 a month. She bought it in 1993 and it matures in 2041. Is it worth cashing out at the net cash value?
- How much should I put towards my retirement vs. aggressively paying off my mortgage? Do I have enough money in an emergency fund?
- I noticed in r/finances wiki it says Mint uses Equifax to calculate your credit score. Mint uses TransUnion.
- Waffling about vacating (can I afford it?)
- Debt Collections
- Possible to pay off $7000 in credit card debit in ~8 months?
| Beware "new" debt consolidation companies Posted: 06 Feb 2019 11:29 AM PST I just received "debt consolidation" offers from Crisp Funds and Whistler Funding. I found it odd they were essentially identical, seemed to offer too good to be true rates and had no Reg Z disclosures. In the little bit of research I've done I've found that the same "company" is doing business under numerous names all run by the semi-infamous MEC Distribution... Their previous "businesses" include: Guardian Angel Funding Graphite Funding Salvation Funding Doublestar Financial Broadstar Financial Bridgeline Funding Pebblestone Financial Lafayette Funding Crestmont Funding Guardian Angel Funding Sovereign Funding It appears that since they caught so much heat under these names they have recently opened new "businesses"...I have found at least 3 new ones: Crisp Funds Whistler Funding Stonedale Partners Identical mailers, nearly identical websites, all 3 sites anonymously registered on 10/25/18. God knows how many other names they're functioning under. They're also using virtual addresses for all of their "businesses"... Their disclosures state they are a marketing firm that simply tries to connect you to an outside lender and make a referral bonus but people who have spoken to them are told "they couldn't find a match for you" and they recommend their scammy debt settlement program. Perhaps worst of all, they're run under a Rent-A-Tribe scam so that they are protected against lawsuits by sovereign immunity afforded to Native American tribes by operating as a "tribal-run" business. So you wouldn't have any recourse for when they inevitably scam you. (This is also how they get away with not having the legally required Reg Z disclosures on their offers) Beware!!! Edited to update MEC Funding to the name found on BBB, etc. (MEC Distribution) so folks can see some of the prior issues [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 05:54 AM PST State Farm, 50k. She's meeting with her agent today to discuss payment. It's my understanding that State Farm deposits the funds into the "State Farm bank" and issues a sort-of set of starter checks that you can use at your regular bank for transactions. Question: She has ~45k in student loans. We owe ~60k on our mortgage. If we intended to move in the next 3 or so years would it make more sense to pay down the mortgage or should she just pay off the student loans? Edit: Thanks for the replies. I'd appreciate if one of the mods could go ahead and lock the thread, please. [link] [comments]  |
| Chase promoting bi-weekly mortgage payments - here's why I avoided taking the bait Posted: 06 Feb 2019 04:07 PM PST We have a mortgage with Chase. Today they sent an email about new automatic payment plans, including bi-weekly. I quickly jumped on that as I know bi-weekly payments result in 1/13th more payments per year (resulting in quicker pay-down), but also can reduce principal twice as often. I went to the gym, pondered my move, and wondered how and why super stingy Chase Bank would promote something that would save me money (and therefore cost them money). I came home to read all the fine print. The good news is that the extra is applied directly to principle. The bad news, and what killed it for me, is that they don't actually apply any of the payment until the full dollar amount of the payment is received. When I set up their bi-weekly, beginning in April, they had me pick a date in mid-March to start the program. So what Chase is doing, is having customers send in half a payment 2 weeks early, sitting on the money NOT applying to principle at the time, then holding it until the 2nd half arrives 2 weeks later. Customers are basically giving Chase a 2-week 0% loan every month as they simply HOLD and don't apply the mid-month payment! Nice try, Chase! EDIT: formatting, spelling EDIT: 1 hour after posting, I just want to clarify that I don't mean to imply that Chase's offer is unscrupulous, shady, or unfair. It's a nice offer that could help people in a couple different ways, just not me and not entirely as I envisioned when I read their offer. [link] [comments]  |
| Employee’s car fell off the tow truck Posted: 06 Feb 2019 11:48 AM PST Her vehicle was having warranty work done, and while en route from dealer to dealer it fell off the truck. It's. 2017 with like 13K miles. They avoided telling her for the last week, and she was just told today. Who should she call? CFPB and insurance company? Edit: Mazda is saying the vehicle LOOKS like it fell of a tow truck, which cracked a taillight and is then causing water to short out her electrical system. So it's not a warranty item. So for two weeks of Chicago cold, her car would not shut off, not turn on, black out the lights while driving etc....but it might be from a broken taillight that happened on the way to the dealer. I'm going to call them for her now, because she is a pushover. [link] [comments]  |
| I just lost my entire life's savings to online fraud, what do I do now? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 02:46 PM PST A few days ago, over $5,000 was taken from my savings account via bill payment for a credit card I do not own and is not under my name. I called my bank and they froze my account, told me to make a new account with a new username and password and they made a claim for the money I had lost. They told me I would hear back about the claim in 10-45 days. Literally as soon as I got off the phone for the claim, my banking app notified me that several purches were made with my debit card outside of the U.S., I was unable to stop the first purchase (it was only $1.65) but I managed to stop two other ones that were around $60 each (the purchases were for gift cards on a website known as kinguin. I called the bank again and made a new claim and they closed my debit card A few minutes later, I kept getting emails from various companies saying things such as "we recieved your payment for x" or "thank you for your purchase for x" when I went to go read these emails, they would immediatley dissapear. I immediatley changed my email password. Someone was accessing my email and signing up for different websites. I managed to rememeber a few of the websites from the few seconds that they appeared. I logged into those websites with my email and lo and behold, someone had been buying gift cards with my money. There was a $50 xbox gift card purchased from target, several gift card purchases from Newegg, and I found the Kinguin purchases I mentioned earlier. Looking through the websites, I found several mailing addresses and ip addresses in other states. I called my local police non emergency number and informed the authorities about the situation. An officer came and took notes on the addresses and ip's I had found, He told me to make a claim on an FBI website with my bank information. The next day, I woke up to a notification from my bank that my balance was in the negatives. Since my debit card was closed, this individual was now doing online money transfers via paypal and xoom. I called my bank and they froze my checkings account and made a claim on the money I had lost. The person on the phone told me that I would recieve those funds back soon because those payments were still processing. On an unrelated note, this individual got into my steam account, changed the password and associated email, so I lost that too, I had over 250 games on it :( Further information, the $5,000 was two years of saving money. I bank with Bank of America. I am a student at university. My dad is helping me a lot in this situation, he has been giving me money for food and other supplies since both my accounts are frozen. Also a few weeks prior, I downloaded a program that had something called a keygen. My firewall warned me about the software and I ignored it, I am 98% sure this is the cause of my problems. Lastly i kept changing my email password and steam passwords but the individual kept managing to send more emails for purchases and change my steam password So I am not sure if I will get my savings back but until then, I am closing several accounts, making a new email and opening a new bank account. I also am NOT doing this on the affected computer because I am certain it was that computer that caused all this. Thank you for reading my story and for any advice you can give. TL;DR Had a keygen on my computer, lost my entire savings, my email was compromised and someone attempted to purchase several giftcards with the money in my checkings. Edit: thank you for all the advice everyone. I'm expecting to get a call back from the bank about the money in my savings account. And I filed a police report. Wish me luck [link] [comments]  |
| Paying off mortgage early with new tax laws. Posted: 06 Feb 2019 08:49 AM PST It seems like with the new higher standard deduction carrying a mortgage looks even less attractive. I always ended up just over the old standard deduction with state taxes and interest. Now I think its down to pure return, my mortgage rate is 3.75%, typically you can beat this with a simple index fund but I feel like the market is pretty shaky right now. So has anyone changed their minds about investing into the market vs paying down mortgage debt? I always do a little bit of both - paying extra on mortgage and investing as much extra cash as possible. Thinking of shifting more funds to eliminating the mortgage though. Of course the wife wants to shift funds to new furniture and updating bathrooms but that's another story. [link] [comments]  |
| How do you approach debt as a couple? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 10:23 AM PST My husband and I have been married for a while now and recently had our wedding reception, and we discussed our lives/livelihoods/finances well in advance as we got to know each other. I was fortunate to work throughout school and receive scholarships to a city school, and I graduated debt-free. My husband went to a more well-known state school and has about $35K in student loans. The rates have increased this year and as we look to moving into a small house (rent increased, too), I want to approach this correctly. My questions to you — —How do couples typically handle debt that belongs to one spouse? Is it your debt? My debt? Our debt? When talking to mortgage lenders? —Who pays it off? Should we structure it out of our "shared" account? —I want to help pay it off - I'm just not sure if that's weird or offensive, and we don't talk in-depth about it aside from the fact that we know payments are leaving his account every month. How do I broach this? [link] [comments]  |
| Received Unrecognized 1099-MISC Posted: 06 Feb 2019 08:04 PM PST Hi there, I just received a 1099MISC in the mail for an amount I can't place and from a firm I do not recognize. It lists a relatively small amount of box 3 income (less than 2k). I checked all my records from 2018 and never received income from any external source in that amount as a whole or totaling that amount in pieces (my taxes are pretty straightforward with income from wages only). I'm hoping that folks here may be able to provide advice on how I should proceed or verify this amount. I will be attempting to contact the listed LLC tomorrow, but from what I see online it is a very small privately held investment company without a website or clear contact route. Thanks in advance!! [link] [comments]  |
| Dad died :( What to do with the house, bills, etc? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 08:47 AM PST I know this question has been asked before (and I've read the answers) but I'm hoping to get a little more specific advice, so thanks in advance :) Everything was left to me as sole beneficiary and executor. He had no assets besides house and small car (which I am going to give to his sister, who desperately needs it). He left behind about 30k in bills. The house is in pretty bad shape, and could *maybe fetch $180k in an "as-is" sale (I've asked a few realtors, so I'm fairly confident that price is pretty accurate). The current mortgage has $110k left on it (he had gotten a reverse mortgage a few years ago), but the current payment is relatively low = $800/mo including taxes, etc. I figure I have 3 choices: 1) assume it, pay off debt, fix it up and rent it out. But that's expensive and annoying. Rent in the area is around 1,800/mo…which is why I'm still considering this option. 2) sell it as-is, and hope there's enough left over to pay the debts. 3) let the bank take it…which feels wrong to let the equity he built up go to waste, but this seems like the easiest option. Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Planet Fitness requiring Direct Withdrawals from checking / savings for automatic payments Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:29 PM PST Lost my wallet over the weekend and had to freeze my cards while I looked for it (thankfully found). In that time I was billed for my yearly fee and it got declined. PF notified me via text of the issue, so I called their number and got ABC finance who does a ton of gym memberships for multiple clubs. I informed them of the situation and that I couldn't pay till my card showed back up. They asked if I had a checking account, which I do and had checks on me (thankfully, as I was travelling). I told them I wasn't comfortable giving that information out and they said I might as well do it because Planet Fitness would no longer allow Credit or Debit cards to be updated as forms of automatic payment. I inquired more and was told that there was a recent change to the majority of clubs to require direct debit from bank accounts as the only form of automatic payment. They gave me some script about "it will help reduce churn and late fees". Yeah, no. It seems just insane to me to give that out to any company as a form of automatic payment. Authorizing them to debit your account directly like that has only ever lead to pain and annoyance and difficulty in recuperating funds due to billing issues. I am fine with them having a credit card number as I have lots of control and can fight any stupidity easily. Anyway, just wanted to post this as an FYI and see if anyone else is getting the same? I don't think they are requiring you to change, but if you want to switch card numbers I was told it would be flagged and will only work for one time payments, nothing automatic. [link] [comments]  |
| Should I pay for TurboTax Deluxe so I can file my student loan interest payment? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:28 PM PST I paid $834 in student loans in 2018 and am filing through the Turbotax app. When I did an easy deduction calculator it said I would save $125. Turbotax says I need to pay for the Deluxe version to file my 1098-E at $39.99. Is $40 worth it to be able to file this form with an app or program or is there a cheaper way to file this? [link] [comments]  |
| Freeing Up Extra $250/Month: What's My Best Option Posted: 06 Feb 2019 07:15 PM PST I'm making the final payment on my car this month, so after February I'll have an extra $250 each month at my disposal. I want to be responsible with it, and not just act like I've got an extra quarter-grand of disposable income. As of now, I'm mulling over three possibilities:
Opinions welcome! P.S. - Humblebrag on my soon-to-be-wrapped-up car loan: Got it as a 3-year loan with an interest rate of only 2.09%. Was pretty damn happy about that! [link] [comments]  |
| Credit impact of re-upping expired mortgage pre-approval Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:54 PM PST I understand obtaining a pre-approval letter results in a hard inquiry on your credit report. If it expires and you haven't found a house and want to extend it, will that be another credit hit? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 10:28 AM PST My father passed away last Thursday. I haven't spoken to him in a 11 years or anyone else on that side of the family. I was informed Saturday I was next of kin and had to deal with his body. I gave that right to my father's sister, and figure that was all I needed to do. Today, I am being informed that I might inherit his debt, stated by my mother, and that I should go talk to my father's sister. What I have been told is that he has lost his job about 4 years ago, he has leans on his house, has a newer car, lots of credit card bills, and medical bills. I live in Washington and he lives in Oregon. I read online that loans and credit bills wont come after me, but is that true? I also read that some states "Oregon" will go to next of kin for medical bills. If there any information or advice on what I should do about this, please let me know. I need all the help I can get. ** Thank you all for all the information and support. This help me a lot, and I'm not as worried as I was at the start of my day. I have no plans on taking thing of his or letting his credit banks fool me. You guys are all wonderful. <3** [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:42 PM PST |
| IRS denied return because of my incorrect (actually correct) EIN Posted: 06 Feb 2019 05:36 PM PST The IRS denied my return because the Employer Identification Number does not match the same as last year's W2. This is correct, the EIN has indeed changed for some reason, but, I guarantee my W2 information is correct. What can I do about this? [link] [comments]  |
| My financial situation is too precarious, how do I start to fix it? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:24 PM PST Hi everyone, Basically, I am in over my head, and I finally realized that when the fed government shutdown and we were suddenly without her income. My situation is this: Living situation: *Bought a house for 250K last year and co-signed with my girlfriend. She is a veteran, so we did not have to pay a downpayment. (I am not a veteran, however.) *We have three kids together. *We are not married, but I plan to propose to her this year when I can buy a ring. Income situation: *We are both college grads. She majored in accounting and I majored in political science. She works for the feds and nets $1900/bi-weekly. I net $1200/bi-weekly. *We have bank accounts, but they are all empty. Debt situation: *I have about $15,000 in credit card debt. She has about $5000. *I have $16,000 in student loan debt. (I am going to law school in the fall, however, so this payment will no longer exist soon.) *I have $28,000 in car debt and she has $20,000. I also have a second car loan of $4000 from a car that was totaled and was not totally covered by insurance. *We have a hospital bill of $22,000 for one of our kids from last year. *I took out a personal loan to invest in crypto last year and ended up losing $10,000. So I also have this loan. Bill situation: *Other than debt, we have pretty much standard expenses: electric, water, gas, food, car insurance. Question: Where do I start as far as trying to get all this paid off? I am sure that I will be able to pay it off easily when I finish law school, but that will be over three years from now. I am worried that this potentially could become more of a problem before then. Are there any financial tricks/advice I should be aware of to work on this? Thanks for any help! [link] [comments]  |
| What to use when you outgrow mint? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 12:58 PM PST I have been using mint since August as part of an effort to get my financial ducks in a row. It's been amazingly helpful in the processes. I really appreciate being able to quickly and easily see where things sit from a high level. It's helped me to ease into new routines, habits and oversight without being totally overwhelmed with all of the details at once. All that said, I'm finding myself more and more frustrated in the details of how some things are handled in mint. The once super helpful graphs and charts have become less and less useful, even unusable in some instances. I find myself wanting a more power user experience where I can override/fix some of the default transactional behavior. What suggestions do you guys have? I've read a few reviews on personal capital and quicken and both look promising but I feel like most of the reviews google indexes are seo sugar coated referral crap. Hoping you guys can give a more honest review. TIA [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 03:45 PM PST My mother is currently 64, she purchased a whole life insurance plan for me in 1993. The face amount right now states $50,850. Strangely enough I believe she said the policy is only for $50k. The Net cash surrender value is at $42k with no fees or anything. The premium that we pay every month is at $100 a month, and it matures in 2041. What are the pros/cons if we keep on paying, and what are pros/cons if we withdraw the money? The research I've done on life insurance, it seems that whole life is a scam, but my mom has fallen for it and I accept that loss. At this point in time, is it a terrible idea to cash out? I'm in no need for money and I'm pretty good with my finances. I also have a great job and can provide for my mother without batting an eye. I figure if we cash it out now, the most we'd lose is $8k if she happened to pass away the day after (knock on wood). Please correct me if I'm wrong. The only downside is that my Mom doesn't have many assets and she uses assistance with Medicare and such for her medical issues. She doesn't have many assets, other than her home. I structured it that way so that she can get her benefits, while I can provide for anything that she may be lacking. If she cashes out that $40k, from our general knowledge, would the $40k not let her qualify for major medical assistance programs that you know of? I know thats a loaded question when you throw in the medical nonsense, so an opinion in regards to what you would do given that she didn't get medical assistance would be much appreciated as well. Thank you very much for any helpful responses. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:41 PM PST How should I choose between saving for my retirement or aggressively pay off my mortgage? Situation is this:
The question now is: How much should I allocate towards paying off my mortgage vs. throwing money into my 401k? I enjoy having the tax benefits of a 401k but having a $300k mortgage looming over my head is anxiety inducing. Should I also build a bigger cash cushion in the event something happens? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 06:23 PM PST I just checked Mint and it says TransUnion. Also this wikipedia article which I also found through the wiki says the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_credit_report_websites On a personal note I just learned FICO is not the same as a credit score from the three major bureaus. Then I learned about Vantage Score which is different from the score lenders see and is apparently the one you get from these free credit score sites. Also there are different FICO scores depending if you are getting a mortgage or a car loan or other stuff. I use Mint and Credit Sesame and they both use TU so I am going to use the wikipedia article to find my vantage score from Experian and Equifax. I also have a CitiCard so I can see my FICO 8 based off of my Equifax report. Hope what I learned is accurate. I would not be opposed to the Feds mandating one or a handful of numbers and making them easy to access. In my mind its similar to the right Europeans have to find our what info websites store about them. [link] [comments]  |
| Waffling about vacating (can I afford it?) Posted: 06 Feb 2019 07:58 AM PST friends/family constantly tell me to spend money "you have plenty" but I argue I have 'plenty' because I don't spend willy/nilly. I took my kids on a roadtrip type vacation last summer (driving to florida, seeing ocean, universal studios, over to new orleans for gators and du monde and gumbo) and spent ~3K and it was their first vacation EVER...first time seeing ocean, first real theme park. etc. A great time was had by all. I realized how old my kids were and limited time to do fun vacations. my kiddos just turned 12 and 15. I've found an option for a 5 day cruise that'll work with school/visitation for ex schedules for about 3300 bucks. I'm not much into the whole cruise thing but my kids will LOVE it I feel sure. teenage boys with all you can eat food and pool time? sold. lol. talk sense into me. lately i've had some unplanned expenses so my savings growth has slowed down a bit the last 18m or so. (paying off 20% of the 80/20 loan we bought the house with, new water heater, rebuilding fireplace, the 2nd car, fence repair, bedroom renovations....etc) and I need to do a stud out reno of both my bathrooms pretty badly and plan to do first one this summer when kids are gone with ex for extended period of time. expecting 15K ish expense. But I already regret not doing more "vacation" trips with kids when they were littler.... in 3 years my oldest will be heading out into the world :( Should I bite the bullet and do the cruise? ******************************************************** 150k - investment account 60k - savings 5-6k - tax return (waiting on investment docs released 2/15) 6k - child support owed (ex stopped paying) taxes paid (4500 in property tax) lawyer retainer paid (3500 - may end up paying more. supposedly ex should be ordered to pay) 3K a month expenses 6.5k a month pay (I cover kids insurance, and do 401K matching %) 539 - child support (not being paid hence lawyer) 1 car paid outright 2nd car almost paid (300/mth car payment-2K remaining) 90K remaining on home (paid 20% loan off 2 years ago in full) 0 additional debts [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Feb 2019 05:49 PM PST So I recently been getting calls from a number that leaves a voicemail, that mentions absolutely nothing about why they are calling. So after like a week of them calling me. I decide to call back, and the man says that he's from a company that collects debt, saying I owe money from an account that had been sent to collections. He said that if I don't pay it he will report it to a credit agency and it will negatively impact my credit. Which doesn't make sense since I just turned 18 and have had no credit cards to charge anything with. And I don't understand any of this, also don't want my credit to be affected for the future since I plan on purchasing a motorcycle in the next few months. What should I do if they put a collection on my credit or something? [link] [comments]  |
| Possible to pay off $7000 in credit card debit in ~8 months? Posted: 06 Feb 2019 07:20 PM PST I've been told to start with the card having the lowest credit $2000. Target that, or find the one with the highest interest? [link] [comments]  |
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