Comments on: Dave Ramsey on Debt Negotiation & Debt Settlement – Wrong Again?

By: Editor

Editor — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 19:30:04 +0000

Debbie,

I wouldn’t cancel your credit card accounts. I would ust cut them up and stop using them.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:21:17 +0000

Big Question for me: I have (with my income tax return) paid off the total balance on two credit cards. I am working on other debt (using Dave’s snowball effect) and want to know the following:

Do I cut these cards (& others I will be paying totally off) up and close accounts as they are paid off OR simply cut them up and let that be it w/o worring about any more activity? (I am trying to figure out if it is better to pay off every debt & have zero balances on each on my credit report OR pay em’ off – cut em’ up & close out each account.

Is it beter to have 4-5 lines of credit on my credit report with zero balances OR should I totally wipe out everything (zero balances on everything) & cup up all cards & CLOSE all accounts)?

I feel so stupid not knowing what is best. What should I do – which is best for my credit?

Thanks.

By: jamie

jamie — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:20:36 +0000

Very judgmental. I believe that is God’s place. We are all sinners. If a person has screwed up, that may be sin, though unintentional, which we ALL do. If a person tries to make things right, move forward, and not make the same mistakes again, that is honorable, even to God. A creditor would rather us pay something than pay nothing in bankruptcy court, which is by the way, where most people are ending up these days. So, you can throw morality at us…but isn’t it better to make your best possible effort when you have truly screwed up than to really mess over someone by not paying them anything??? I believe my God, my Daddy, my Father, would pat me on the back for trying my best and then tell me I had learned a good lesson. Isn’t that what a great Father does?

By: jamie

jamie — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:14:00 +0000

Debt consolidation companies are a joke! You restate Daves opinion that ““Responsible use of a credit card does not exist… There is no positive side to credit card use.” This is very true and I agree with him completely. In this bankruptcy forged world we have, many people live paycheck to paycheck and don’t pay their debts. For those people I say work it out with your lender. I haven’t seen a lender yet that can’t do for you or better what a debt consolidation company says they can do, but I have seen a lot of my friends be TAKEN by so called debt consolidation companies. If a person has enough money to pay cash they don’t need credit cards, if they don’t, they use them and often end up in BK court. Have you seen our Bankruptcy statistics? It’s ridiculous! Dave Ramsey is right on the money here. Prior to the 60s we didn’t have credit cards, people bought stuff with cash and we didn’t have this amount of bankruptcy. This debt is draining our economy, not helping it!

By: Joel

Joel — Tue, 24 May 2011 18:06:28 +0000

lol So, just to get this straight: You are saying that when Psalm 37:21 says that “The wicked borrows, and pays not again” (“does not repay” is actually the true passage in NKJV as I misquoted from a different translation I believe: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2037:21&version=NKJV Sorry about that, my mistake) then in your view that just means that it’s OK to just pay back a little bit but not all of the debt owed? In other words, you are only wicked if you don’t pay back anything at all but if you can scrounge together a few dollars and pay that even though you may owe thousands then – poof, “OK, the verse doesn’t apply to me now. I paid back a little bit of what I owe.” Sorry James, as convenient as that interpretation might be to some, this verse clearly is saying to repay ALL debt owed NOT just as much as you can or as much as you feel like.

By: James

James — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:00:57 +0000

You judge a tree by its fruits. Dave is doing a great job by telling people straight up what they should do based on his own experience. Thousands of people are debt free and on their way to a healthy finance future. A couple of things here, I dont agree that Dave markets himself as a “christian counselor”, just listen to his show often and you will see that he rarely, if ever, brings the bible into discussion, and second, amazing how you put your own words when quoting the scripture. You quote “Bible says that if you owe someone money then you should pay it all back.”; and then you quote the bible:
“The wicked borrows, and pays not again: but the righteous shows mercy, and gives. – Psalm 37:21 (NKJV)”; wow, where does it say PAY IT ALL BACK.
It really sounds like you dont like 90% of what Dave says. It sounds more like someone trying to demoralize a successful person who’s really not looking to make millions (We paid $100 for me and my wife for Financial Peace Unniversity, a 13 course week with all the material included), instead just teaching common sense.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:24:45 +0000

Appeal to Motive Fallacy

By: Brad Bilse

Brad Bilse — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:54:20 +0000

I simply notice the credit card endorsements at the top of this site and can pretty much take anything said here with a big grain of salt.

By: Michele

Michele — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 02:00:25 +0000

I understood the “settling” to be because of the exorbitant interest rates and fees that companies continually add on??!! Not for the actual debt incurred…

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:40:12 +0000

I actually like Dave Ramsey quite a bit but that doesn’t mean that I should blindly accept everything he has ever said. This post and the other Dave Ramsey post mentioned explains quite clearly some evidences for why those particular Dave Ramsey statements are not something that should just be blindly accepted as fact.

“I find it strange that you are using a single “proof-text” verse to slam Ramsey’s advice, when there are more scriptures that counsel us to first provide for our own, which is Ramsey’s counsel as well.”

This is a good point that you make and I don’t disagree with you at all. That being said, a lot of people use this as an excuse to just not pay off debt because they need to “provide for their own” with cable TV, going out to eat, and other excesses.