All posts by Charles Phelan

New Survey Finds Americans More Worried About Debt Than Terrorist Attacks

A new national survey was released today showing that Americans are more worried about not being able to pay their bills than they are about terrorist attacks. The survey was co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress, a non-partisan think tank. “Public Recognizes Debt as a Fast Growing Problem in U.S.” discusses the survey in more depth and contains a link to the actual publication in PDF format. Several...

ZipDebt Quoted in MSN Money Article

MP Dunleavy, columnist for MSN Money, just published an article that ZipDebt readers may find of interest. The article is titled, “Losing at Balance-Transfer Roulette,” and it tells the story of two 25-year olds struggling with credit card debt. Both of the women whose stories are told in the article played the balance-

Federal Reserve Says Banks Not to Blame for Increase in Bankruptcy Filings

When Congress passed the bankruptcy reform bill last year, they included Section 1229, which asked the Federal Reserve Board to conduct a study to determine whether the “indiscriminate” extension of credit to consumers had contributed to the increase in bankruptcy filings. The report is a treasure trove of fascinating little tidbits of information. Here are a few examples: 1. In 2004, 71% of American families held general-purpose credit card...

What is ZipDebt All About & Why Should You Care?

ZipDebt is an idea that I had after leaving my position as an executive with a large debt settlement operation. The idea is simple enough: Why can’t people do this themselves for a fraction of the cost? The name is itself is nothing special. I wanted an Internet domain name that would be short, easy to remember, and contain the word “debt.” Unfortunately, just about every possible permutation was...

Steer Clear of the “New Credit File” Scam

Recently, I ran across a website that purported to show consumers how to set up a new credit file. Here’s a direct quote: “Now, you can set up a brand new credit file, totally separate from your existing one. This process of achieving AAA credit, with your new credit file, takes less than 30 days & not only is this 100% LEGAL, it’s your RIGHT!” Just to set the...

Curse of the Zombie Debt

A recent article in the St. Petersburg Times, “Buyers Give Old Debts New Life,” provides a revealing look at the problem of “zombie debt.” (See my blog post of 5/19/06 on this subject.) In the debt industry, zombie debt is debt that is past the Statute of Limitations for collection through the court system. This is also called “time-barred” debt, because it has aged past the point where collection...

Consumer Debt Up 13% from 2004 Levels

A new report released by Experian shows that consumer debt levels have increased over the past two years. Based on an analysis of millions of consumer credit files, the average revolving and installment debt has increased from $10,371 in 2005 to $11,669 in 2006. This represents an increase of nearly 13% over the past two years. Installment debt includes auto loans, student loans, or other loans with a fixed...

Debt Purchasing Firm Sued by Illinois AG for Bogus Collection Tactics on Time-Barred Debts

A debt purchasing company has been sued by Illinois’ Attorney General — Lisa Madigan. The suit alleges use of illegal collection tactics by the firm. A detailed press release on this latest enforcement action against the collection industry is available here. Financial Credit Service, Inc. has allegedly been using intimidation tactics to pressure people into making payments on debts that would otherwise be uncollectible. Why are some of the...

Credit Counseling Industry Attacked by IRS: When Did “Profit” Become a Dirty Word?

The latest big news in the world of debt and credit is the IRS’ attack on the credit counseling industry. The IRS has canceled the tax-exempt (non-profit) status of some of the largest counseling agencies in the industry. A total of 41 organizations have had their non-profit status revoked, and this represents about 40% of the industry’s revenue. There are at least 740 other agencies that have not yet...

Why You Shouldn’t Delete Old Accounts from Your Credit Report

With all the news these days about identity theft, it’s important to examine your credit report for errors at least once or twice per year. If you’ve been using credit for, say, 10 years or more, the odds are high that you’ll see older accounts still listed on your reports, even though you haven’t used those accounts for several years or more. This commonly happens when you purchase items...