How To Ask Your Credit Card Company About A Hardship Program
The Short Version
- A hardship program can lower your interest rate or your payment for a set time after a job loss, an injury or another setback.
- Ask whether the program is reported to the credit bureaus, and what the conditions are, before you agree.
- Call before you miss a payment if you can. You make the call; I give you the words.
What Is A Hardship Program?
A plan your credit card company offers when you can't keep up with the payments for a while. Each credit card company sets its own terms: a lower interest rate, a lower payment or waived fees, for a set number of months.
What Do You Need Before You Call?
Your statement, what changed and when, and the payment you can make each month. Be honest about that number. A plan you can't keep doesn't help you.
What Should You Ask Before You Agree?
How long it lasts, what the interest rate and the payment will be, what happens when it ends, and whether the credit card is closed to new purchases.
What Do You Say?
I wrote the call out word for word, including the questions to ask before you agree.
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Next Steps
- List every debt in the debt snowball calculator.
- Read No 0% Credit Card? What To Do Instead.
- Take the 1 minute quiz: Which Stage Are You In?
Questions People Ask
Will it be reported?
Ask whether the program is reported to the credit bureaus, and what the conditions are, before you agree. Each credit card company handles this its own way.
What if I've already missed a payment?
Call anyway. Say what happened and what you can pay now.