How to Eliminate Credit Card Debt with Bank Of America

Do you have credit card debt with Bank of America that you are having trouble keeping up with? Bank of America, Chase Bank, Citibank, and Discover Card are some of the biggest banks in the country. They also received billions of dollars in bailout money from the federal government to prevent them from failing.

Now I want to take a few moments to tell you a little bit about my experiences with all of these banks and how I was able to eliminate over $18,000 in credit card debt with Bank of America through debt settlement and debt negotiation for only $4500.

Hopefully you can use some of this information to get some debt relief if you're having trouble keeping up with your minimum payments or going through a decrease in income like I was.

My financial situation was not always like this. For many years I paid all my credit card bills on time and had a good credit score. However, I built up too much credit card debt and when my income dropped it became very hard to keep up with all my payments.

I did not want to file for bankruptcy because I was hoping to recover from this situation when the economy improved. I knew that filing bankruptcy would ruin my credit for 7 to 10 years and would not eliminate all my debt.

This is when I started to learn more about debt settlement and debt negotiation. At first I was very skeptical.

What I learned was that a credit card company will have to write off the entire balance if they cannot get anything from you before they have to charge off your account after six months. And this is why they will agree to a settlement in exchange for wiping out your entire balance.

Bank of America would rather take 25%, 35%, 45% or 60% of the balance and forgive the remainder of what you owe.

But don't think you can just call up your credit card company and ask for a debt settlement offer. If you're making all your payments on time, they have no reason to work with you. It is only when you're going through a financial hardship that they are willing to settle with you.

The closer you get to falling six months behind on your payments the more willing the credit card company will be willing to settle with you.

Until that time, they will try to get you on a reduced payment plan, a reduced interest plan, a debt consolidation program, or a number of other different programs that they will not tell you about when you're making all your payments on time.

They never tell you about these programs when you are struggling to keep up with your minimum credit card payment.

So here's a few more details about how I eliminated $18,000 worth of credit card debt with Bank of America for only $4500 in less than six months. That's a 75% reduction in my balance by the way. Can you imagine only paying a quarter of what you owe. A settlement offer of $.25 on the dollar.

You would be hard-pressed to get that kind of result with a debt settlement company after they tack on their high fees. You can settle your own credit card debt.

After my income dropped, I was unable to keep up with my monthly payments, and I had to let Bank of America know what was going on and why I had missed my first payment in over four years.

Believe me I was very nervous about making that first phone call.

I called them up and explained what happened and that I hoped to get back on track shortly but did not have a timeline on when that would happen.

Of course they asked for some type of payment to keep my account from falling further behind.

This continued for the first three months of my delinquency. I would call them up about every two weeks and give them an update on my financial status and let them know that unfortunately I could not make a payment at this time and hope to get my finances in order soon so I could continue being a good customer and paying their high interest rates.

It wasn't until the fourth month that I was behind that debt settlement became an option. And surprisingly their first settlement offer was 35% of the balance, around $6000.

I would've loved to have taken advantage of that offer but I did not have that much money at the time and let them know.

And this is where the debt negotiation started.

They would make an offer and I would make a counteroffer and before long we would have a settlement agreement that would work for both of us.

As the six-month deadline approached, I made more phone calls to Bank of America and let them know that my situation had not improved and that I was hoping to avoid filing for bankruptcy and that I would hope that we could reach a good settlement agreement to get this financial crisis solved.

At last they made their final settlement offer of $4500 and I accepted. They were willing to wipe out my $18,000 credit card balance for 25% of what I owed. I was able to borrow the money from my family and eliminate my credit card debt with Bank of America.

I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be free from that burden and see a zero balance on my credit card statement.

Now I have to work to rebuild my credit score which took a hit because of all the missed payments. But in 12 to 24 months' time I should be able to increase my credit score by making on-time payments again.

You can do it yourself debt settlement and debt negotiation and eliminate your credit card debt without using a debt settlement company. You can save at a minimum 50% of what you owe to your creditors. The biggest key is to stay in constant contact with your creditors and let them know about your financial situation. Communicate with them regularly and they will be more willing to deal with you when it comes time to settle your credit card debt.

Here is a good course to help you learn how to do it yourself debt settlement: