1. Know your current credit and debt situation. Obtain copies of your credit reports as well as your spouse’s credit reports. Make a list of all debts and decide who is responsible for each account.
2. Have a plan. Your divorce decree should state what will happen (frozen assets, wage garnishment, etc.) if your spouse stops making payments. Make sure you have quick legal recourse if your spouse stops paying, and ensure your ability to make those payments yourself if necessary.
3. Open a checking and savings account in your name only.
4. Get at least one individual credit card and utility in your name only.
5. Pay off all debts. Sell or refinance your house or other assets to cover outstanding debts, if necessary.
6. Close joint accounts. Request that joint accounts be placed in the responsible party’s name only as an individual account. If joint accounts cannot be reverted to individual accounts, then freeze joint accounts and tell the creditor that you will not be responsible for any more charges after that date.
7. Remove all authorized users from your individual accounts -- that especially means your spouse and his or her family members. Authorized users are not obligated to pay back any charges they make.
8. Don’t stop paying the bills. Keep making regular payments during the divorce process.
9. Don’t wait until you’re in a crisis situation. Get your financial situation in order before you file for divorce.
10. Contact your creditors. Your creditors are not a party to your divorce decree and are not legally bound by it. If your spouse fails to make a payment for a joint account, the creditor can and will pursue you for the money; it also will appear on your credit report. However, the creditor may enter into a separate payment arrangement with you or take your name off an account.
11. Creditors are not required to change joint accounts to individual accounts. A creditor may require you to reapply for credit on an individual basis or refinance a mortgage in order to remove one spouse from the loan obligation.
12. Get all agreements with creditors in writing. Make notes of all phone calls including names, dates and the topic of conversation. Don’t have your name removed from any title if you are still responsible for the loan.
13. Divorce is difficult even under the best of circumstances. Pay attention to credit issues before a divorce, and you can make the divorce process easier and relieve much of the stress.

Authorized users:
You may authorize another person to use an individual account in your name, but you are responsible for the entire debt. If you are an authorized user on another person’s account, you are not liable for the debt. However, the debt still may appear on your credit report.

I welcome your comments…

Linda Martinez -- FES Sales Director/Certified Credit Consultant ]]> http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/credit-education/divorce-and-your-credit/feed/ 0 http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/credit-education/foreclosure-or-short-sale-which-option-to-choose/ http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/credit-education/foreclosure-or-short-sale-which-option-to-choose/#comments Sun, 15 Apr 2012 20:15:32 +0000 admin http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/?p=312 Continue reading →]]>

Foreclosure OR Short Sale…

Losing your home to foreclosure as a result of not being able to keep up with your monthly mortgage payments can be one of the most devastating events you will ever experience. It is also an event that keeps on affecting you long after you lose your home because it destroys your credit score. No one can be 100% sure that they will remain safe from foreclosure because they can’t foresee the unexpected. Occurrences such as serious illness, a major accident, divorce or job loss can happen to anyone. With today’s uncertain job market and economic climate, it’s a good idea to understand the available alternatives should the worst occur.

Foreclosure is the worst of all available options The inevitable result of a foreclosure is the lender taking your house. Not only will you lose your house, but the lender can get a judgment against you for any remaining balance you owe plus his costs for the foreclosure action. If that isn’t enough, your credit report will be in terminal condition for many years to come, worsening an already bad financial situation and making it very difficult to obtain any other kind of credit. There is no upside to foreclosure. It should be avoided at all costs.

Consider a short sale when foreclosure seems inevitable A short sale is a popular option for homeowners mired down with financial problems. In this case, you would sell your home for less than what you owe your lender; the biggest problem you will face is getting your lender to agree to a short sale. In many situations, they will not. Experts advise pursuing this option the minute you realize that you are falling behind in your payments and most likely won’t be able to catch up. The longer you wait and the greater the amount you are in arrears, the less likely it becomes that your lender will even be willing to discuss a short sale.

Short sale has disadvantages too While a short sale will save you from foreclosure, it will also have a negative effect on your credit score, frequently lowering it by as much as 200 points. This can be overcome more quickly than the devestation of a foreclosure, especially if you manage to retain one or two credit cards and keep them current. Perhaps equally distressing, the Internal Revenue Service frequently deemed the difference between the mortgage balance and the amount realized from the short sale to be taxable as income despite the fact that the debtor never saw a dime of it. Federal legislation called the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act 0f 2007 was designed to essentially eliminate this problem.

Almost any option is better than foreclosure Simply stated, do everything you can before foreclosure occurs and do it as quickly as humanly possible. Don’t sit back and keep thinking, “What can I do?” Instead, consider that short sale and check with your lender before your options become more limited.

Select a Skilled Realtor to Assist You A successful short sale is dependent on a skilled real estate agent. Having someone who can work on your behalf is essential. Don’t just get any real estate agent to help you! Select an agent with lots of short sale experience, he or she will know who to talk to, when to talk to them, and how to handle all the paperwork to get the deal done.   Select a Skilled Certified Credit Expert…. to help you become Credit Worthy Again!     “Protecting One Family At A Time” Linda Martinez FES Sales Director/Financial Consultant 562.754.3961

]]> http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/credit-education/foreclosure-or-short-sale-which-option-to-choose/feed/ 0 http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/credit-education/prevent-id-theft-during-tax-season/ http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/credit-education/prevent-id-theft-during-tax-season/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:09:32 +0000 admin http://QueenOfCreditRepair.com/?p=308 Continue reading →]]>  

By Hayley Tsukayama, Published: March 2The Washington Post

On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission released its annual list of the top complaints it receives every year, and ID theft was No. 1 for the 12th year in a row.

One very common source for ID theft? Tax returns.

According to Todd Davis, the chief executive of the identity theft protection company LifeLock, there are plenty of online dangers that should make people cautious when doing their taxes, but it’s not the fault of legitimate online tax services.

“I don’t want people to be afraid of doing their taxes online,” he said. “It’s actually very safe, people should look to take advantage of that convenience.”

Those who do file online, however, should make sure that they’re using a site whose address starts with “https,” which indicates the information is being transmitted safely.

But while online tax preparation services take pains to secure their information, the same cannot be said for the average person, who may be e-mailing returns to accountants or family members.

Davis cautioned that people should be very careful about e-mailing returns or sending them over peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, and make sure that they are using secure connections and e-mail addresses that haven’t been compromised. Users should also be sure to store their completed tax returns in a protected file.

Davis also shared advice on safety precautions for those who file a paper form.

“Don’t put it in your own mailbox, with the flag up. We suggest going into the post office yourself,” he said. He said savvy thieves target the blue street mailboxes, too, to try to get multiple tax returns at once.

Tax returns, he said, are a treasure trove of personal data for thieves.

“It’s got information on you, your spouse, your kids — all of your names, your address, birthdate, and sometimes even your bank account and routing numbers,” Davis said.

If thieves do get your data, it can be a messy process to undo. Victims will have to file a local police report and register with the Federal Trade Commission as a victim of identity theft. After that, they have to start monitoring credit reports, communicate with the Internal Revenue Service and — of course — keep a close eye on their bank accounts.

Remember, Davis said, that the IRS will never initiate communication with a taxpayer through e-mail. So don’t believe or open “notification” e-mails that claim you’re being audited or are coming into some unexpected returns.

“Some of it will look innocent enough, but they’re looking for the keys to the kingdom,” Davis said. “Forward them to phishing@irs.gov.”

He said that tax return ID theft has increased five-fold from 2008 to 2010, and that thieves stole more than 500,000 returns from taxpayers in 2011.

“Around 15.5 percent of all ID theft complaints are tax-related,” he said. “

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was designed to protect consumers against abusive practices by the debt collection industry. But when FDCPA took effect in 1978, few people could have anticipated how Facebook and Twitter would infiltrate our daily lives. In recent years, a handful of lawsuits by consumers who were contacted by collectors through social media have brought the issue to light.

One strategy collection agencies use, according to Michelle Dunn, a 24-year veteran of the debt-collection industry and the author of “The Guide to Getting Paid”: setting up a fake profile and using it to try to friend someone (a few states have laws against online impersonation).”If you look like a really good-looking girl, a lot of people would accept a friendship even if they don’t really know the person,” she explains. Dunn says she discourages this practice in her Web-based seminars on social media and debt collection. “I just tell them to use common sense,” she says. “Don’t pretend you’re someone you’re not. There shouldn’t be any interaction.”

FDCPA doesn’t explicitly forbid collectors from, say, posting on your Facebook wall or tweeting your relatives to ask about your whereabouts. But according to Craig Thor Kimmel, a consumer attorney in Ambler, Pa., the act’s intent is clear. “A debt collector that posts about your debt on social media would be violating this statute very clearly because that privacy is compromised,” he says.

Despite this, collectors can use information found on a social network to contact you in other ways. “Right now, the normal pre-social media method would be to use the address off the loan documents and statements, but if the consumer is unwilling to respond to the contacts or is at a different location, they can certainly use social media as way of finding the consumer,” says John Ulzheimer, the president of Consumer Education.

Experts suggest the following strategies to pre-empt unwanted calls or other communication from collectors:

1. Respond within 30 days of receiving a collection letter. For many people who receive a letter from a collection agency, the impulse is to bury their heads and ignore it. That’s a mistake, according to Ulzheimer. “You can eliminate all communication,” he says. “All you have to do is send them a letter within 30 days and tell them, ‘Do not contact me anymore through any method.’ They can still sue you for the debt, so the act of collecting doesn’t necessarily stop, but they can’t send you emails or call you anymore.”

If you actually owe the debt, he suggests offering a settlement so that it doesn’t continue to follow you. Third-party agencies that have purchased the debt “don’t have the same skin in the game as the original creditor, so you could offer some sort of reasonable settlement and be done with it.”

2. Use those privacy settings. Dunn said she’s shocked by the number of users whose Facebook profiles are set to completely public. “Even though I’m not your friend, I can see all your pictures,” she says. Setting your profile to private reduces the likelihood that a collector has access to your wall or photos.

3. Be selective about what you post. Social networks like Facebook can create a false sense of intimacy because you’re communicating with friends. Even with a private profile, your friends’ accounts could still get hacked or someone could be peeking over their shoulder, so it’s smart to err on the side of privacy.

Dunn says collectors use social media profiles to “look for the address or employment information. A lot of people put what their occupation is, where they work, cellphone numbers.” For instance, when someone gets a new cellphone number, they’ll sometimes post it on Facebook so friends can reach them. “I have to say if I was somebody who owed money, I probably wouldn’t put (my cell number) online and make it public information,” adds Dunn.

Most people know not to post their Social Security or credit card numbers, but many list a birth date. “To me, that’s comical,” says Ulzheimer. “If someone walked up to you off the street and asked your birth date, would you give it on the street? But you’re gladly doing it on Facebook.”

4. Don’t accept friend requests from strangers. For reasons described earlier, don’t approve requests from people you don’t know. It could be a friend of a friend, but it could also be a collector or spammer.

5. Skip the “like” button. Liking your bank or credit card issuer on Facebook may open the door to the company collecting information about you that you haven’t given them. “How many people actually like their bank?” ponders Ulzheimer. “To the extent that you like your bank, that’s fine, but I’m not sure that you have to memorialize that by clicking that you like it on Facebook.”

If, despite these steps, a collector contacts you via a social media site, Kimmel suggests printing out the message or saving a screen shot to your computer to create a paper trail. “Once you have that, report the sender as spam on Facebook and file a grievance with the Federal Trade Commission,” he suggests. The consumer could be entitled to up to $1,000 plus legal fees and actual damages “if a debt collector engages in unauthorized debt collection contact, through, for example, social media,” says

One of the big questions that you have to ask yourself as a parent is whether or not you should get life insurance for your child. Programs like the Gerber Grow-Up Plan let you buy life insurance for your children for a small price. Then, when your child is older, he or she can keep the life insurance policy, ensuring that he or she is insured, or the policy can be cashed in to help pay for college.

Another consideration is that it is possible to purchase “regular” life insurance for your child. Some people choose to purchase whole life policies for their children. And, of course, many parents have riders attached to their own policies. These small insurance amounts are meant to help cover burial costs. Here are some things to consider as you determine whether or not to buy life insurance for your children:

Future Health Problems

Some health problems can prevent an adult from getting the life insurance coverage he or she needs at an affordable rate. The purchase of a whole life policy while your child is long can mean that he or she is already set for life insurance, and doesn’t need to worry about future health problem derailing efforts to receive affordable life insurance.

However, if you don’t have a family history of health issues like diabetes and more, it might not be worth it to insure your child young. Chances are that he or she will be able to obtain the life insurance he or she needs.

College Funding Needs

It used to be that getting life insurance for children was one way to “save” money for college. However, this is not the case so much anymore, since there are 529 Plans and Coverdell ESAs to help parents save up for eventual college costs. Besides, the cash value in many of these insurance policies designed as college savings vehicles is usually so insignificant that it doesn’t make that much of a difference. You have to buy a large amount of coverage if you want to be able to effectively cash in the policy.

Instead, it might be a better idea to just find other college savings opportunities, rather than relying on an insurance policy to help pay for your child’s college.

Does Your Child Make Money?

For the most part, life insurance is actually supposed to protect families in the even that a wage earner passes on. In most families, children don’t qualify as wage earners. However, there are situations where the child does earn a living. This might be done through modeling, performing, or by some other means. In that case, life insurance for your child is a must. If your child is bringing in money, he or she should be insured so that your family is protected from a loss of income.

Riders on Your Insurance

Many parents simply find it easiest, and most cost-efficient, to add a rider to their own coverage. These riders, usually with between $1,000 and $5,000 worth of coverage, are designed to pay out if a child dies. This is money that can cover funeral expenses. That way, if your child unexpectedly passes on, you have the money available to cover some of the costs.

Whether or not you decide to insure your child is up to you. However, don’t be swayed by insurance salesmen that tell you that you will get life insurance for your child because you love them. Life insurance isn’t for the person covered, it’s for the people left behind. So, if you love your child, and care for his or her future, you’ll make sure YOUR own coverage is adequate for the future.

“Protecting One Family At A Time”

                   Linda

Debit Cards Are Different

Would you give a thief direct access to your checking account?

No? Unfortunately, you may be doing just that by regularly using your debit card. Debit cards may look identical to credit cards, but there’s one key difference. With credit cards, users who spot fraudulent charges on their bill can simply decline the charges and not pay the bill. On the other hand, debit cards draw money directly from your checking account, rather than from an intermediary such as a credit card company.

Because of that, even clear-cut cases of fraud where victims are protected from liability by consumer protection laws can cause significant hardship, says Frank Abagnale, a secure-document consultant in Washington, D.C.

He cites the example of the The TJX Companies Inc.’s T.J. Maxx data breach that exposed the payment information of thousands of customers in 2007. The incident resulted in $150 million in fraud losses, and much of it was pulled directly from customers’ bank accounts. While credit card users got their accounts straightened out and new cards in the mail within a few days, the case created major problems for debit card holders who waited an average of two to three months to get reimbursed, Abagnale says.

While debit card fraud is always a possibility, being careful where you use it can help keep your checking account balance out of the hands of criminals.

Skimming ATM’S

The idea that outdoor ATMs are among the most dangerous places to use a debit card seems a little bit absurd. But some ATMs present a perfect opportunity for thieves to skim users’ debit cards, says Chris McGoey, a security consultant based in Los Angeles.

Skimming is the practice of capturing a bank customer’s card information by running it through a machine that reads the card’s magnetic strip. Those machines are often placed over the real card slots at ATMs and other card terminals.

“Any transaction you do outdoors at an open ATM is going to be higher risk exposure,” McGoey says. “If the public has access to it, then someone has the ability to add skimming devices to it, position cameras on it and position themselves in a way where they could surveil it.”

He says you’re better off using an ATM inside a retail outlet or other high-trafficked, well-lit place.

Julie McNelley, senior analyst for Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based financial services research firm, says even the card terminals that card users must swipe to get into ATM vestibules are being used as a skimming site by criminals. You can spot ATM skimmers by checking for ATM components that look beat-up or askew, she says.

Stealing PINS at Gas Stations

Gas stations are another danger zone for debit card use.

“You go to a gas station and you stick your debit card in there, and you swipe it through a machine,” Abagnale says. “I’m sitting across the street with a laptop and an antenna. I put a skimmer in there, and I’m picking up all the information. Before you even get home, I’ve debited your account.”

Gas station payment terminals have many of the characteristics card fraudsters love, McNelley says.

“In a gas station where you do have a whole bunch of pay-at-the-pump kinds of things and minimal supervision, it’s pretty easy for a bad guy to put a skimming device on and put a little pinpoint camera there and compromise debit cards that way,” McNelley says. Thieves often use small cameras to capture footage of debit card users entering their PINs so they can have free access to their money.

She says even if the thief doesn’t manage to get your debit card personal identification number, or PIN, from such a device, he still may be able to duplicate the card’s magnetic strip and use it for “sign and swipe” Visa or MasterCard transactions.

With the high potential for fraud in pay-at-the-pump debit transactions, it might make sense to use an alternative such as cash or credit cards the next time you fill up.

The Web is a Risky place!

Debit cards are a convenient way to buy products online, especially for those who don’t like to use credit cards. Unfortunately, the Web is one of the most dangerous places to make purchases, McNelley says.

“Online is the No. 1 place where consumers should not use their debit cards,” she says. “It’s susceptible at so many points. The consumer could have malware on their computer, so it could be at their endpoint that the data get compromised. It could be a man-in-the-middle attack where somebody is eavesdropping on their communications via the wireless network. And then at the other end, that data goes into a database at the merchant. As we’ve seen with some of the higher-profile breach events over the last year or so, that data is going to be vulnerable if (they’re) not properly cared for.”

Aside from the potential for hacking at many different points in a transaction, Abagnale says a fundamental problem with using debit cards online is it’s impossible to know who is handling your information.

“Buying stuff online, you have to be careful because you have to know who you’re doing business with. When you buy things online, what always kills me about that is people say, ‘This is a safe site,’” Abagnale says. “Who works there?”

Restaurants keep Data on file..

“Would you care for a side of debit card fraud with that?”

Restaurant servers don’t ask that question, but they might as well with the standard practice of taking customers’ debit cards to run them behind closed doors.

“Any place where the card is out of hand” can increase the chances of fraud, says McGoey. “The guy comes to your table, takes your card and disappears for a while, so he or she has privacy,” giving the person the opportunity to copy your card information.

Even restaurants without sit-down service can present a threat. McNelley says using debit cards to order delivery can be risky because cashiers tend to keep customer payment information on file. That may make future orders more convenient, but small businesses rarely take the steps necessary to safeguard payment information, she says.

Overall, she says, regardless of whether you use your debit card at a small restaurant or a big-box store, the possibility of fraud is always there. She cites the example of Michaels Stores Inc., which saw its customers’ debit card information stolen in May by debit card terminals doctored by thieves.

“Even if you do exercise caution … there are still the Michaels-type incidents that will happen,” McNelley says.

Laundry Tip #1 – Use Cold Water

I didn’t think that using cold water instead of hot water would change anything at all, but I was surprised. We have an all-electric house, which means our water heater is electric too. When we switched from doing all of our laundry with hot water to doing 90% of it with cold water instead, we saw our bills drop $5 – $10 a month. It apparently does take more energy than I would have expected to heat all of that water up. And a big bonus is that my shirts and towels don’t seem to be fading as quickly either!

Laundry Tip #2 – Do Full Loads

Most washers and dryers use about the same amount of energy running a small load of laundry as they do running the larger ones. Given that, it stands to reason that you can save money on energy by consistently combining small loads into one larger load or waiting until you have a large load to run. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember out of sheer laziness, so I am glad it helps save us money too.

Laundry Tip #3 – Re-wear Certain Clothes

No, please do not re-wear your stinky undergarments, but why wash a pair of pants that you only wore for a few hours while sitting around? Unless I am doing something other than sitting in my cubicle or computer all day, I wear my outer layers of clothing several times before bothering to wash them. This goes completely unnoticed by myself and others (I hang out with guys that would love to tell me if I was stinky). It easily saves me the time and money of doing an extra load of laundry every week.

Laundry Tip #4 – Reuse a Towel

I was astounded to hear that a few of my friends use a new towel every, single day. I thought that only hotels did stuff like that. I was raised to use the same towel multiple times or you would get yelled at for causing more work! Unless you get a ton of personal satisfaction from that new towel “feel”, I would highly suggest using the same one for at least 3-5 days before moving on. That would lead to way less laundry and you will get that fresh towel scent the entire time.

Laundry Tip #5 – Avoid Dry-Clean-Only

It seems like common sense, but I was not in the habit of checking my clothing labels before buying something until I started doing my own laundry as a teenager. Now, I stick with solely machine-washable daily wear that is wrinkle free out of the dryer as well. Not only do I save a ton of fees from dry cleaners, but I also have never used an iron for anything other than making grilled cheese sandwiches in college.

 These laundry tips may not make you a millionaire, but they are easy to do and save you time to boot. Saving a few bucks every month is just a big bonus in my opinion.