Anything they can do, you can do better

Every time I see one of those ads for debt relief agencies that allege to help people in deep credit card debt I want to put my foot through the TV. They claim to be non profit agencies that exist to help others but in reality they are in business to do one thing, and that's make money off the misfortunes of others. (There is one exception and it's Consumer Credit Counseling.) Take it from me, and I speak here from personal experience, there is nothing those rip off agencies do for you that you can't do for yourself.
I know there are lots of people like me who got into financial trouble due to health reasons, the biggest cause of individual bankruptcies in this country is due to crushingly high medical bills, so this post is for you. For those of you on the brink of credit card trouble, this post is for you as well. And for any of you drowning in debt and who are being harrassed by collection agencies then this post is for you too.


First a bit of background on me, I stopped paying my credit card debt when I had my heart attack. I figured I needed my money more than the credit card companies did so I stopped paying them. Here's what happened next:

• They hounded me for a bit but I sent them all a letter telling them I was not going to pay since I was not working. I told them in writing that I needed my money worse than they did so they needed to stop harrassing me. The calls stopped as soon as they got my letters.
• After my bypass things settled down for me financially and I contacted the credit card companies to work out some kind of arrangement. They love it when you do this because they will get some money from you and some money is better than none at all. In all cases the companies reduced my interest rates and I told them I would pay them "X" amount of money each month and that I was only going to pay around 2/3 of what they claimed I owed. I also told them I was not going to pay any late fees or and add ons they put on me when I was not paying them. They all quickly agreed.
• A few months after I made these arrangements I found out I was not going back to work at all for the foreseeable future so I stopped paying the credit card companies once again. Of course they howled and complained, they said "We made you a deal! You must pay us!"
• When they sicced their collection goons on me I found out that I had a powerful weapon on my side, and it's called The Fair Credit Reporting Act. When ever a collection agency called I'd ask them for their address and then I'd thank them and I'd hang up. Then I'd write a letter to them telling them not to contact me anymore concerning that debt since there was no way I could repay it. The FCRA says that once the collection agency gets the letter they can contact me once more but that's it. If they do contact me more than once after getting that letter then they are in violation of the law and I could sue them for harrassing me if I wanted to. No agency ever contacted me again after getting the letters I sent.

My credit rating is shit since I stopped paying but in seven years all that comes off my credit report and when it does I'll be able to rebuild my credit again.

Am I suggesting you do what I did? Well, if you need to go right ahead but understand it's better if you stick with whatever repayment agreement you make with the credit card companies, unless your case is like mine and if you don't mind your credit rating going in the toilet for seven years. What I am telling you is this: YOU HAVE OPTIONS WHEN YOU ARE BEING HOUNDED BY CREDIT CARD COMPANIES AND THEIR COLLECTION AGENCIES. There are laws that are on your side and you should not be afraid to use them.

Just so you know, the credit card companies will eventually write off my debt and they'll get to subtract it off their corporate taxes when they do. All debts are written off eventually and wiped from the slate. Things happen that force us to rely on credit cards sometimes when we know we shouldn't and things happen sometimes that force us to use our money to keep a roof over our heads instead of sending our money to greedy corporations so don't be ashamed to stand up for yourself and stop the bullying of the banks who issue credit cards. In times of financial crisis always put your family before the needs of the financial industry. I hope none of you ever fall on hard times where you need to make the choice between paying your rent or paying a credit card bill, but until our current system collapses and is revamped more and more of us will fall between the cracks.

What's Next China?

As I sit here in the Nissan penthouse office of the Mountain Dew Monkey Muck HQ, word comes to me via the Xerox internets that China has forced Starbucks out of the Forbidden City. How disgusting! Who do those slant eyed Commies think they are?

What's next? Will they force their citizens to stop eating Uncle Ben's fried rice? Or walking on the Yoplait Yogurt sidewalks of Beijing? Or will they have to stop watching their Sony TVs?

People need corporations to tell them what they want to eat, drink, and feel. They need corporations everywhere, all the time, in every facet of their lives. Or are the HalliburtonBlackwaterUSA war of terror on Iraq and the McDonald'sSAIC war of terror on Afghanistan being fought in vain? Have all the SCI causalities been in vain? Is the Hallmark sacrifice of those brave Barnes&Noble men and MidolTampax women who dropped the BoeingAerojet bombs and shot all those people to be now thrown away and not honored in China?

When will President GlaxxoSmithKline Bush and Vice President ExxonMobil Cheney speak out against this anti corporate outrage in China??? Will they hold their Wal-Mart tongues when the Chinese invade us and close down all the malls and force out people to buy from local shops that sell homemade local products? Ewwwwwww. How gross and disgusting would that be? Why it's almost enough to FordGM drive me to have a BudweiserStoli drink before noon!

Now, if you will all excuse me the Starbucks in my colon is experiencing the late morning rush and I have to go lend a hand.

Something we do for fun

A while back I bought some big mailing labels, 3 1/4" by 4", at Office Max. I took them back to el Casa de Monkey and I made some impeachment stickers out of them. I took this picture: and under it I printed smart ass comments like "You ain't got the balls to impeach me America," "Sit on this and spin America," and "God told me to hate you America." Then under the picture and the caption I gave pro impeachment website address.

I then took to sticking them up in innocuous places. I put them up in public places where other people had stuck up advertisements, places such as phone booths, soda pop machines, billboards, etc. Then one day I was going through the mail and I saw the five millionth credit card offer of that week laying there on my desk. I opened it and was getting reay to shred it when I realized that I was about to shred a perfectly good postage paid envelope. Sure it was addressed to the company that was issuing the card, but I figured what the hell. So I stuck a impeachment sticker, with the backing paper still on of course, in that postage paid envelope and I mailed it back to the credit card company.

Those bastards in the credit card industry prey on people and they suck them dry with their high interests rates, so I figured why not keep doing that? So everytime a credit card offer comes in the mail I fish out the reply envelope and stick an impeachment sticker in it and I send it back to them. I have nothing against the people who work in the area that processes the mail when it comes back to them, I just figured it might lighten up their day or maybe it would make them think about impeaching that Jackal and his team of ass hats (a tip o' the fez to Pam at Musings of a Working Mom for reminding me how much I love the phrase 'ass hat').

If you are an employee of one of the credit card companies and you get one of my stickers feel free to keep it or to stick it up where your bloodsucking bosses will see it and get pissed off about it.