Unique Service Helps Reduce Credit Card Debt

By Michael Killian, CardRatings.com Reporter

Editor's Note: This article is part of a popular Q & A format series in which we interview experts and industry professionals that have made significant contributions to the credit card industry.

Scott Crawford is the CEO of DebtGoal.com. From the beginning of his career in economics, he watched Americans' savings go down and debt-load go up and was fascinated by this trend. Eventually, Scott went to work for a large credit card issuing agency and was charged with doing research to learn customer needs. The results of this research were used to design new products.

One consumer theme heard repeatedly was the request for help to get out of debt. Obviously the idea could not be sold to the credit card company, so he decided to do it on his own. Scott joined forces with technology and business-development experts to create a new company that would focus on helping consumers attain their financial goals. The end result was GoalSpring and its flagship product DebtGoal.com. He explained how Debtgoal.com can help those with debt troubles.

Mike: It looks like your site offers a debt acceleration plan. Can you describe how this works?

Scott: Debt acceleration plans are pretty simple conceptually. Ideally, you start with a constant amount you want to apply to debt each month. You make minimum payments on all accounts except the highest interest account, which gets the remainder. As you make progress paying down other credit cards, the minimums on these accounts come down and you free up more to apply to the highest-interest account. Using this technique, users can pay off credit card debt in approximately 2.5 years versus 14 or more years if they were to make minimum payments only.

Although it sounds easy, this can be daunting for a lot of people. To make it work, you need to start with a committed amount each month and adjust for any credit card spending. For many people with multiple debt accounts, the ongoing organization requirements are more than they are comfortable with. GoalSpring has created a system which manages it for them, putting their information in one place and simplifying the management process.

Mike: Do you offer ideas on determining the accelerated amount and do you have a suggested amount to apply to acceleration?

Scott: We believe that our users are more likely to have long-term success reducing their debt if they find a monthly commitment amount that works for them. So rather than push them to set a really aggressive initial target that will prove unsustainable after a few months, we start with the sum of the user's current minimum payments and let them go up from there. Remember that by starting with minimum payments and holding this amount constant, most users can pay off credit card debt in 3 years versus 14 years. So the important thing is to find an amount greater than minimum payments and stick with it. Adding in mortgage or student debt will leverage this payment acceleration to pay these debts off efficiently as well.

Throughout the process, we show users opportunities to evaluate their spending structure and determine if they want to free up cash that they can apply to debt by increasing their monthly commitment. For instance, we encourage users to evaluate whether they can reduce their mobile phone or cable bills and how much that would save them in interest expenses over the life of their debt. If they want to take that action, they can log the action in the tool and increase their monthly commitment amount. To help users quickly evaluate the potential impact of these actions, we show how other users have rated the actions and how much it saved them in interest.

Mike: Do you offer alternative debt solutions?

Scott: We're in the process of building out this capability now. Since we have good insight into users' debt structure, we can show them the impact of having a different debt structure. We are working to build out a catalog of products that we can present to users that will show them the impact on their debt-free date and total interest expense. Using our tool, users can take advantage of these offers to realize the savings and reflect them in their plan. Even though they lower their interest costs, we'll encourage them to keep their payments the same so that more money can be channeled toward debt repayment.

Mike: Can you describe some of the tools you incorporate at your site?

• Our Debt-Health estimator helps users understand their debt health and actions they can take to improve it.


• The Rate-Negotiator helps users negotiate lower rates with credit card issuers by showing them the average reduction that other users have been able to get for each of the major credit card issuers.


• Our community allows users to interact and share debt tips that will help to get out of debt quicker.


• Our debt reduction tools help users analyze different debt-reduction strategies: Should you take out a 401(k) loan to pay off credit card debt? Should you apply savings to debt? Should you take out a home equity line of credit to pay off credit card debt?

Mike: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Scott: Paying off debt is the number one New Year's resolution for 2009. According to Franklin Covey, 56 percent of Americans set a goal to reduce debt this year. Of this number of people, 65 percent will never actually create any sort of a concrete plan to attain their goal. DebtGoal is there to help. We make planning easy.

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This article was written by Mike Killian, Founder of Learning Credit and Debt Management. Mike has been writing about credit and debt management issues that are of importance to consumers for over 8 years. His articles have been referenced by various members of the media, including MSNBC and The Motley Fool. Mike has also offered debt elimination seminars to businesses and community colleges for many years.

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CardRatings.com is the most comprehensive source for comparing credit card offers. CardRatings.com is pleased to offer consumers free credit card ratings.

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Please Note! You are welcome to republish this article as long as you state that CardRatings.com is the source for the article. You must also include a link to our website if you republish the article online. Click here for more details about using our articles and thank you for your interest!

Blogging to Teach Consumers About Credit Card Utilization

By Michael Killian, CardRatings.com Reporter

Editor's Note: This article is part of a popular Q & A format series in which we interview experts and industry professionals that have made significant contributions to the credit card industry.

One of the most interesting aspects of an interviewer's job is that every subject has something to teach. As an interviewer and consumer, I become most enthusiastic when I get the chance to speak to an interesting person and learn something useful at the same time.

That is precisely what happened when I discovered a new blog site called CreditMattersBlog.com and its creator, who asks to be known simply as Marcus.

The site was created to help people with varying degrees of financial expertise make good credit decisions. Not only does knowing about credit matter, but having "good credit" matters even more. So how do you know what good credit is and how can you achieve it? Those questions bring us back to what CreditMattersBlog.com is all about.

I caught up with Marcus and asked him some questions about his site and himself.

Mike: When was your site created and how did it come about?

Marcus: CreditMattersBlog.com officially launched in July 2008. I launched it because a lot of my friends kept asking me about credit. These friends knew that my scores were excellent and knew that I had a lot of available credit. Mostly, I think they just wanted to find out how I did it.

Realizing that I didn't want to be a personal tutor, I decided that it would be a lot easier to launch a blog. Want to know about credit utilization? See my blog. Want to know why it makes sense to diversify your card holdings? See my blog. Why does it make sense to pay in full each month? Again, see my blog…

The blog has freed up a lot of my time. I'm no longer fielding phone calls on a regular basis. I'm also not getting cornered at picnics and parties, either. It's nice to be able to tell these people, who I really want to help, that they can get all of my thoughts in one place: CreditMattersBlog.com.

That said, the blog has become a lot bigger than I ever thought it would be. I thought my audience would be small. I figured I wouldn't have to do much to maintain the site. Early on, that's exactly how it worked out. Now, of course, I find myself blogging throughout the day.

Mike: What is your background and how did you become so knowledgeable in this arena?

Marcus: My background is in financial journalism. In particular, I covered Wall Street as a reporter. After college, I got interested in the stock market. In particular, I was fascinated by mutual funds. The timing couldn't have been worse. We were right in the middle of a bear market (1994). Because the market was so tough, it forced me to learn as much as possible about the market before I started investing in it. I devoured as much information as I possibly could. Without getting into all of the details, I ultimately parlayed my financial knowledge into a journalism career. I met the right people and I was given a chance to break into the business. The rest is history.

As for my interest in credit, and how I gained so much knowledge, that's a funny story. About three years ago, I applied for a credit card and was denied. I remember one of the reasons for the denial was "balances too high for available credit". I immediately headed to Google-search for "credit, denial, high balances". That search led me to creditboards.com, a forum for credit information.

I determined my problem was utilization. I was about 65% utilized on all of my cards. If I wanted to increase my score, I needed to pay these balances down. My FICO scores soared after that. I went from roughly 650 to about 750 in no time. I vowed to never again carry balances. And I vowed to learn everything I possibly could about credit.

Since then, I have been on a mission to learn everything about the credit industry. My particular focus, of course, is the credit-card industry. It probably took me a year before I felt really confident about my knowledge. The Internet was my primary educational tool. I visited site after site, picking up pieces of information here and there. What you see today at CreditMattersBlog.com is all of the information that accumulated over the last several years.

Mike: You have a background in journalism and law. Where do you see your future taking you?

Marcus: I am in my final year of law school. I graduate in less than six months. My most immediate goal, after graduation, is to take and pass the California Bar. I already have a job lined up, so that's just one less thing to worry about. Beyond my legal career, I have little doubt that I will continue to write. It's in my blood. I couldn't imagine leaving journalism altogether. I think it's safe to say that you'll see me writing for some news publication in the future.

Finally, I do have plans to write a book on consumer credit. The trick is writing it in a way that makes it relevant for all time. Many books are obsolete when they hit the bookshelves. So, my task will be to write a book that is timeless. It's easier said than done. We'll see how it turns out. I won't start writing that book until sometime after August 2009.

Mike: Any final words?

Marcus: I'd love for people to come to my site so that I can educate them. But even if they don't, that's fine. The important thing is that they go somewhere to learn this stuff. As parting shot, I'd like to give a shout-out to all of my readers. The site wouldn't be what it is without your support. You're the best readers around.

Marcus obviously has a busy future ahead. His readers new and old can look forward to following him in his upcoming legal and literary pursuits.

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This article was written by Mike Killian, Founder of Learning Credit and Debt Management. Mike has been writing about credit and debt management issues that are of importance to consumers for over 8 years. His articles have been referenced by various members of the media, including MSNBC and The Motley Fool. Mike has also offered debt elimination seminars to businesses and community colleges for many years.

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CardRatings.com is the most comprehensive source for comparing credit card offers. CardRatings.com is pleased to offer consumers free credit card ratings.

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Please Note! You are welcome to republish this article as long as you state that CardRatings.com is the source for the article. You must also include a link to our website if you republish the article online. Click here for more details about using our articles and thank you for your interest!

Your Credit Card: Help from an Unlikely Source in the Event of an Airline Bankruptcy

By Curtis Arnold, Founder of CardRatings.com

With the cancellation of numerous American Airline flights and several other airlines filing bankruptcy, you might be feeling a little leery about purchasing airline tickets these days. And if you have already purchased tickets you may be worried about not being able to use the tickets and/or being out the money you paid for them. However, if you purchased those tickets with your credit card you may be in luck!

We contacted public relations representatives from Chase, Citi, Discover, and American Express to find out what assistance, if any, they offer their customers in this type of situation. We found out that airline tickets purchased from airlines that subsequently went bankrupt are eligible to be disputed via their normal dispute resolution process with two notable caveats:

1. You will probably need to try rebooking your ticket through another airline first. Some airlines, as well as credit card issuers, are offering to assist with the rebooking process.

2. Some credit card issuers will want to see the unused ticket.

According to Discover's public relations department:

"We are providing information to facilitate re-booking of their tickets with other airlines. If they are unable to re-book their ticket, we are initiating disputes and issuing credits to the accounts."

Overall it seems like a fairly painless process to get your money refunded. All the issuers we talked to said that they would do everything possible to support their customers. Gotta love the free benefits that cards offer!

This article was originally published on CreditBloggers.com by Curtis Arnold, a nationally recognized consumer educator and advocate. He is the founder of CardRatings.com and the author of How to Profit from Credit Cards: Using Credit to Improve Your Financial Life and Bottom Line (FT Press, 2008). Curtis has been educating consumers about credit cards since 1998. He is regularly interviewed and quoted by respected members of the national press regarding consumer credit issues.

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CardRatings.com is the most comprehensive source for comparing credit card offers. CardRatings.com is pleased to offer consumers free credit card ratings.

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Please Note! You are welcome to republish this article as long as you state that CardRatings.com is the source for the article. You must also include a link to our website if you republish the article online. Click here for more details about using our articles and thank you for your interest!

Credit Cards, Frequent Flyer Miles, and "Priceless" Gifts

By Curtis Arnold, Founder of CardRatings.com


More and more of us are accumulating frequent flyer miles – not because we’re flying all over the place, but because we get them as built-in perks when we use our credit cards. Of course, there are plenty of people who actually are frequent flyers, who rack up their piles of miles thanks to all the traveling they do. But these days, over half the miles we earn do not come from traveling. Instead, whether we’ll use them or not, we get some every time we say, “Charge it.”

I’m all for consumers choosing their credit cards to take advantage of this and other potentially valuable perks … assuming all other things are equal (interest rate, annual fee, terms, etc.). I think it’s great that competition is so tough for card issuers, they’re offering extra fringe benefits like this to woo and keep us!

According to Randy Petersen, Publisher/Editor of Inside Flyer magazine, the airlines give out 20 million or so free tickets a year. Isn’t that great?

Even more astounding: There are over 9 trillion miles in “current liability” – that is, just sitting there, waiting to be transformed into free flights. At least they’re not waiting out on the tarmac! But they’re not being put to good use, either.

Give a Priceless Gift

If you’ve got piles of miles, how about donating some of them to benefit our troops? Congressman C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger created a program that makes it really easy for you to do just that: Operation Hero Miles, where you can donate miles in support of the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Already underpaid and stressed to the max, until 2004, members of the armed forces had to finance their own much-needed “R&R” trips. But by contacting Operation Hero Miles, they could fly for free.

Regardless of how you feel about the war, I hope you agree that Ruppersberger came up with a painless solution to a serious problem for the well-being of our troops. And once the Department of Defense finally began paying for the soldiers’ travel, Operation Hero Miles switched its focus. The organization now gives free tickets to the families of wounded troops, so they can visit their loved ones in military hospitals.

I hope with all my heart that you and your Mom had a terrific Mother’s Day, and that you won’t ever need an Operation Hero Miles ticket. Unfortunately, there are many Moms out there – as well as their soldiers and kids – who will be thrilled to find out that their journey is possible.

I can’t think of a better gift than a contribution of frequent flyer miles to Operation Hero Miles. Click here for the details.

Have you done anything special with your frequent flyer miles or other credit card perks? Please let us know!

This article was originally published on CreditBloggers.com by Curtis Arnold, a nationally recognized consumer educator and advocate. Curtis has been educating consumers about credit cards since 1998. He is regularly interviewed and quoted by respected members of the national press regarding consumer credit issues. Curtis is currently working on publishing a book about credit card usage with Pearson/Prentice Hall- more details forthcoming!

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CardRatings.com is the most comprehensive source for comparing credit card offers. CardRatings.com is pleased to offer consumers free credit card ratings.

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Please Note! You are welcome to republish this article as long as you state that CardRatings.com is the source for the article. You must also include a link to our website if you republish the article online. Click here for more details about using our articles and thanks for your interest!