With card companies promoting so many supposed advantages of using their credit facilities, from earning free trips to garnering purchase discounts, availing of multiple credit cards seems like a deal that is too good to pass up on. What most people don't realize is that cardholders are essentially being lured into spending more than what they can actually afford. Sooner or later, you end up finding yourself in serious trouble and running out of excuses to give credit collectors who relentlessly demand for immediate payment or even issue disconcerting threats. When your situation comes to this, it is easy to feel as though there is no possible answer to such a problem and that you may as well give up everything you own at the risk of going bankrupt. This type of problem, however, is not an isolated case and is being experienced by many other individuals who feel just as desperate and uncomfortable at having drowned in a huge amount of debt.

Getting rid of the stress that comes in dealing with several creditors and their collection units as well as the occasion to regain good credit standing are only a couple of the good things that the debt management process can lead to. Under a debt management plan, a debt advisor will be able to help you study your position in its entirety and come up with a method that should rectify it. You will be given a chance to slowly do away with your debt throughout a couple of years or so through a payment plan that may allow fixed monthly payments that are as minimal as possible. Undergoing a debt management plan also puts forth the benefit of dealing only with the debt management company which, in turn, will take care of the payments that your creditors are due. With the assurance of being able to collect payment over time, this kind of setup is actually supported by credit card companies.

Availing the services of an upstanding debt management company will be the key in making the most out of the debt management process. Consider as many options as you can get and choose one that will serve you best. Being in debt does not have to be as frustrating of a situation as it may seem if you step up and seek the help that you need.

With house prices having fallen eleven months in a row (according to figures from Nationwide), buyers poised to step on that first rung are waiting in the wings. So what are market conditions really like?

Well, according to the financial papers, prices are set to still fall, which is why many potential buyers are still holding back.

This may be bad news for those desperate to sell, but for those looking to finally be handed the keys to their own home, the news is great.

Many of these would-be purchasers have been saving up for years, watching prices soar further and further beyond their reach. Provided that they haven’t given up and dipped into their funds, they could be on track to buying their dream home in the next year.

One of the only dampeners that buyers should be aware of is the difficulty right now in getting a loan. Existing home loan borrowers have an easier time, should they find a buyer, as they have a proven credit record on their side and probably a chunk of equity in their property.

Lenders are now asking for as much as 25% deposit – compared to the 100% or even 125% loans that were being offered when prices were still rocketing. Unless you have a good credit record and a hefty chunk of savings, your dream property might not be as close as you think.

So, potential buyers could be wise to use their credit cards and take out cheap personal loans – provided always that they make repayments promptly. By building up a good credit record before they look at getting their home loan, they stand a great chance of getting that mortgage approval they need.

Many people believe – wrongly – that a credit record shows whether a lender has refused credit. This is not the case. Every time you apply for credit a ‘footprint’ is created on your credit record to show other financiers what you have been up to, but no record is immediately made as to whether you took up an offer, or whether it was refused.

One thing that varies from lender to lender is ‘how much is too many?’ Most of us are familiar with the concept that lenders looking at a credit record showing multiple applications may – quite rightly – view this as a sign of someone desperately seeking credit. As this is rarely the sign of a good potential client, many lenders will turn this applicant down on principal.

But how much is ‘too many’ when it comes to applications. Lenders will obviously vary, according to their criteria, but a flag usually goes up if more than four applications have been made at any one time. If the applications are spread across a period of months, the lender will be more lenient.
Another factor that people misunderstand about their credit rating is how much stability affects their core rating.

When you apply for credit – be it a mortgage, a credit card or a personal loan – the lender wants to know more than anything that you will be able to repay. The greater the risk perceived, the higher the interest rate charged, which is why bad credit loans can be so expensive.

Factors affecting this can be whether you are married – a sign of committment – whether you are registered as a voter, how many times you have moved house and even how many times you have moved job.

Someone who is seen as high risk is not necessarily someone with a history of missed repayments and ccjs, but maybe someone who has jumped from job to job, moved house or town many times and generally shown a lack of stability.

So, if you’re wondering why you weren’t offered the best rates available on the loan you wanted, you may need to look deeper than you thought.

With lending rates so high at the moment and not expected to come down for a while, a tracker mortgage would probably not be the right option for anyone who cannot afford increased payments in the short term. Instead, taking out a short-term fixed rate loan would be a wise choice, to avoid being stung by higher repayments in the coming months.

If you have been in arrears recently then switching might be a bit more of a tricky issue since most lenders are now getting a lot tougher on borrowers with blemished credit records. Bad credit mortgages are available, but after last year’s sub-prime losses in America, these tend to be offered at very high rates.

You might not be able to take advantage of the cheap deals out there if you have recently gone into arrears or missed a payment, however there are still some sympathetic lenders out there who are willing to ignore the odd blemish on your credit history so make sure you shop around when you are looking for a good deal.

HSBC is currently offering something called a “RateMatcher” policy, which allows mortgage customers about to come to the end of fixed-rate mortgage to extend their loan for another one to five years at their current rate. This will prevent customers from switching out of an existing good deal to a higher rate elsewhere and should come as welcome relief to anyone whose cheap-rate home loan ends this year.

As banks continue to tighten their belts when it comes to lending borrowers are being warned to prepare for rejection when they apply for a credit card. The people that are going to find themselves most likely to be refused are those with imperfect credit histories.

In the recent past it was assumed by most people that only those who had very bad credit histories, recent first time buyers and some buy-to-let investors were the ones who would find it difficult to secure credit. However times have changed in the wake of the credit crunch and more and more people are finding that they too are being rejected for credit.

Customers applying for cards and personal loans are finding that credit scoring has become tighter, with lenders giving more stringent reasons for turning down an applicant. Last year an applicant might have got away with making the odd late payment on a card or loan and it not affecting their credit score, but this year it’s a different story.

It has been revealed that the number of applications for credit cards that are being rejected has gone up by as much as 17% in the past six months. This means that roughly 3.27 million people across the UK have been refused credit in that period. This is a half a million more people than were rejects in the six months leading up to March 2007. Those of us who are most likely to see or application for credit rejected are people in the 25-34 year old age bracket.

Banks are also becoming increasing choosy over who they are willing to lend money to because the pool of money they have to disburse is so much smaller. With so many people looking for bad credit loans or low-deposit home loans, there are going to be a lot of disappointed borrowers.

Using the information that they have come across on people’s Facebook pages, fraudsters are able to open bank accounts and take out credit cards and personal loans in their victim’s name.

The warning was sounded by a BBC1 consumer show Watchdog. The show conducted an experiment in which they set up a fictional identity on Facebook. The Watchdog team then invited 100 random people to become friends with their newly created fictional character ‘Amba’.

35 of those invited to become Amba’s friend immediately accepted the request despite knowing nothing about her. By accepting, the victims allowed the fictional Watchdog character to view any private details that they had posted on their page.

Details which could easily be accessed included date of birth as well as hometown. The Watchdog team then used these details in order to obtain more private details about their victims from other publicly available websites.

With this information Watchdog then opened up an online bank account in their victims’ names as well as successfully applying for credit cards.

One of the victims, Scott Gould, stated that he was “very surprised” by what Watchdog managed to do despite having only the slightest bits of information about him.

Users of Facebook as well as all other social networking sights are advised to be very careful when posting their details. Fraudsters often leave a trail of bad debts behind them, in Your name. Not only is the onus on you to prove that you are not responsible, it is hard work correcting your damaged credit rating.

Many credit card companies offer very low interest rates on balance transfers; sometime this can be as low as zero percent. But there is a time limit on this balance transfer. So for example if you need six months to pay off your debt and the zero percent interest on balance transfers apply for the first six months then this is an option worth considering. This could possible save you from having to pay back possibly hundreds in interest fees.

Make sure you read the fine print on the deal before signing and take care to make all repayments on time. Missing a payment or paying late can result in the lender replacing your great rate with a much higher APR, leaving your paying more than if you had taken out a debt consolidation loan to clear the original debt.

Another danger is if you do fail to pay back the balance within the given time period the zero percent will revert back to the a much higher rate on the card and sometimes this includes the lender back-charging interest on the first six months of the loan as well. This could result in repayments outweighing the benefit of the zero interest on the first six months.

Lenders do have a responsibility to warn you if the introductory offer of zero percent is about to run out. However as a general rule its better not to trust to this reminder jogging your memory, as it can often be buried in small print. Just make sure you yourself are always aware of the time limit on your offer or one morning you could wake up to a big surprise.