What can I do to help my sister with her credit problem?

My sister owes about altogether $32,000. She has gotten credit counceling through American Consumer Credit Counseling (ACCC) and she owes $23,000when they consalidated 3 credit cards. She owes a bank loan of $2,000. She owes another credit card $2300, She owes Sears $3200 and Mervyns $700. My dad%26#039;s offered to put all of it on his credit card but I am afraid she will never be able to pay that amount. She makes $23,000 a year and claims she cant find another higher paying job. Can she file for bankruptcy and if she does, what exactly does he need to do?

What can I do to help my sister with her credit problem?heart rate

first off, don%26#039;t help her. If you do she will repeat the actions that lead her here because she will feel she has you to bail her out.

second, she should try to pay off her debt before she just throws up her hands and declares bankruptcy. It will take years to pay it off but she ran up the bills, no one else. If she does declare bankruptcy, then for the next ten years she can%26#039;t do anything financially. Like get house, buy a car, rent a place, or get another credit card. It is very extreme!

Third, if she does decide to , she needs to hire a bankruptcy lawyer. She will have to pay them, up front, a fee. The lawyer will file the paperwork and then it goes to court.

What can I do to help my sister with her credit problem?

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As hard as it is, I think you and your father should stay out of it. You can%26#039;t do anything to fix her credit for her. If you assume her debt or co-sign loans, you%26#039;ll be the ones on the hook if she defaults again. She should check to see if she%26#039;s eligible for bankruptcy but as I said, the rest of the family should insist that she sort this out on her own.|||I recommend that she enters the other cards into a CCC program. However, if she is also thinking about bankruptcy she should consider entering the debts into a debt settlement program. With debt settlement she will pay back around 40%-60% of the total debt she owes. She can be out of debt in as little as 12-36 months, with more affordable payments than CCC.

Good luck with everything, and let me know if you have any more questions.|||Can she get a part time job???? It sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do (I%26#039;m working 2 jobs because of credit card debt!)

The best bet is to pay off the smaller debts first....make larger payments towards those and the minimum towards the larger debts....then once the smaller ones are paid off, keep making the same monthly payment but apply it all towards the larger loans....this way the smaller ones will be gone quickly and won%26#039;t be on her credit|||If she wants to file bankruptcy, she should contact a bankruptcy attorney, or go to the county courthouse which will give her the paperwork to file it for herself, and she would only have to pay the court costs then. I would not have your dad consolidate it for her, because if she can%26#039;t pay it, then he%26#039;s stuck with the debt and especially on a credit card that will hurt him in the long run.|||How did she get into debt? Shopping-addiction?

Giving her a bail-out only enables an addict to continue her addictive behavior.

Did ACCC actually do any counceling?

Or did they just give her a $23,000 loan?