Are you looking for ways to eliminate your personal credit card debt level? If you’ve started defaulting on the multiple credit card accounts and you feel that your monthly income is not enough to repay the total debt amount, you should look for professional help. Before knocking at the doors of the shady debt consolidation and debt settlement companies, you should initially get help from a credit counseling agency. These are teaching organizations that gives you enough advice that will be helpful in closing the doors on credit card debt.  Check out some benefits of credit counseling agencies.

• He’ll assess your present financial state: The first task that they’ll do is to assess your present financial state. You have to show them the total amount of debt that you owe, the names of the creditors, the total outstanding balance and the interest rates on each account. Unless

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The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) is a U.S. government program that helps homeowners refinance, even if they are underwater. The first version of HARP had problems, and relatively few homeowners were helped.

The latest version of HARP, which debuted at the end of 2011, should remove many of the obstacles to refinancing, even for people with bad credit. Mortgage lenders began accepting applications for this program on December 1, 2011.

If you tried to refinance under the old HARP, you were probably disappointed. There were multiple reasons that HARP failed to provide widespread help to homeowners. Many homeowners owed more than the maximum allowable 125 percent of their home’s value, or had seen drops in income or credit scores that made them ineligible for refinancing. In addition, refinance fees were too high for many to consider one.

Mortgage lenders’ and insurers’ interests were also stacked against HARP 1.0.

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As you read over your credit report, you may run across accounts that you have closed in the past. Each of the accounts will have a reason for having been closed. You may have finished paying off the loan, such as a car, mortgage, or student loan. Or, you may have, in an attempt to curb your own spending, requested that a credit card company close your account, leaving you to pay off the balance as per the usual payment plan. In a worst case scenario, your crediting agency may have closed your account, themselves, in a negotiation to reduce your interest rate and expedite your ability to pay off the card. The credit card company may have also closed your account because you don’t make regular enough payments on it.

If your creditor closed your account, it will show up on your credit report as “closed by grantor” or “closed at grantor’s request”. This usuall

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Just as it was recovering (sort of) from its PR nightmare, BP decided to slash rewards on its branded credit card, the BP Visa. The card, once considered among the best gas cards available, is now mediocre-bordering-on-sucks. Originally, it gave 5% back on BP gas, plus 2% on travel and dining and 1% elsewhere. The best part? It gave double rewards – that’s 10%, 4% and 2% for the first 60 days. Now, well, not so much. Its a veritable minefield of terms and conditions gotchas, and for all its nice looks, its a disaster of a rewards program (too soon?).

How far the mighty have fallen

Unwilling to have even one good thing associated with their brand, even if it’s just a credit card, BP sent out a mailer to cardholders announcing a change to its rewards structure. Effec

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