Mandy, our 15 1/2 year old Pekingese dog dies in her sleep last night. She was loved by her family and hated by the family socks; which she would pull off our feet with a lot of gusto. I'll post a picture when I find a digital one. She will be missed.

You can view the page at http://mydebtfreeforum.com/content.p...Deduction-Trap

You can view the page at http://mydebtfreeforum.com/content.p...-profit-center

We have had to change a cookie setting and that might lead to some of you not being able to login or log out. What you need to do is find the old cookie for mydebtfreeforum.com and delete it. This should allow you to login fresh with the new cookie.

Apologies for any inconvenience this causes but as we are upgrading, we found the old cookie setting doesn't work with what we want to do.

I'm running XP sp3 and I am rather happy with it. Never did the Vista thing. However, the world seems to be marching on.

Tried the Ubuntu Linux, wasn't comfy with that, never did figure out how to install the printer, scanner or other peripherals.

Win 7 is very expensive, in my opinion. Since I have a bunch of XP programs I use, I suspect I would need the upgraded version which is in excess of 300 USD. Times 2 computers and that's a serious chunk.

So, is Win 7 really needed or is there a way to get legitimate copies for less money? Or do I need to buy new computers with it pre-installed to get it cheaper?

Sigh.

So, last night I purchase some financial software for the forum in preparation for going live. No problem, I whip out the old debit card and pay the bill.

Today I check my email and the transaction is denied.

So I do a quick account balance check (not that I don't occasionally mess up the ledger :eek:) and the funds are definitely there.

So I call the bank and sit on hold for a while. Then I get an operator and after answering several identity questions which were not only ridiculous but in one glaring case actually wrong, I get put on hold again. After a while another person answers the phone. We go through the whole ID thing again. It's still wrong, but, who cares?

So, I explain the issue. Why did the bank refuse to honor a legal and proper financial transaction I had initiated? Well, it's like this, she says, it's not her department so I need to be put on hold.

After a while on hold, I get another lady. By this time the ape in me is showing through and I rattled off the security stuff faster than she could verify. So we started over and this time I played the stupid redneck with a slow response time. After all that she needs the problem explained AGAIN!

At least I was in the right department this time. She calmly explained to me that the transaction was denied because the company was located outside the US. And since it was located outside the US and we ALL KNOW OVERSEAS TRANSACTIONS ARE USUALLY FRAUDULENT, the bank automatically declined the transaction.

I explained to her that it was a business account and when I set it up I very fully explained that there were going to be a LOT of overseas transactions. She said she saw those notes in the account information. However, all that meant was I needed to call the bank during normal business hours and pre-authorize the payment in the amount and to whom. Then they would open a 24 hour window for overseas activity in the account. If the supplier was a bit tardy, well the window would close and that was that.

I was very incredulous that these restrictions were put on a business account. She very sweetly explained that this was for my protection and in my best interests. I explained I wanted the restrictions lifted since the payment was a monthly subscription and I was certainly not going to chase them down every month to get a 24 hour window opened.

Nope, can't do that. So I asked them to remove the restriction for that specific company.

Nope, can't do that. They NEED to PROTECT ME from DOING BUSINESS with my BUSINESS ACCOUNT!

Guess I'm hunting a new bank in the morning.

Oh and the amount?

12.95 USD a month. That's what they were protecting me from.

12.95 a month. I guess I could say 1,295 cents a month, makes it look like more.

I suppose.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

You can view the page at http://mydebtfreeforum.com/content.p...won-t-tell-you

Last November, my husband and I were in a rough financial spot. I was only working 3 days a week after having been laid off for 6 months, we had a new baby, and his job was, well, less than great. We had tried contacting the bank directly about a loan modification, but they wouldn't even discuss it - they wanted us to refinance, which would've meant closing costs and a down payment of at least 10%. If I had that kind of cash lying around, I wouldn't be worried about paying the mortgage, so that was a waste of time.

After seeing one of those commercials on TV for a Mortgage Loan Modification, I decided that it might be the answer.

For those who aren't familiar with the loan modification program, in a nutshell it works like this:

Many banks in the US accepted government money with the understanding that they would then work with homeowners in difficult financial circumstances to keep them in their home. This usually boiled down to renegotiating the terms of a mortgage (such as lowering the interest rate or other fees) in order to lower the monthly payment, and keep it affordable.

I called the number from the commercial, got the name of the company, and spoke to a very nice man I'll call Owen. Owen told me that there were no 100% guarantees that they could help us, but that the company had dealt with our bank many times and could likely reduce the mortgage by $200-300 a month.

It sounded like a godsend.

Of course, there was the matter of the fee. The company usually charged $3000 to represent homeowners in the negotiations. I said that I would have to talk to my husband, as that amount would pretty much wipe out our savings, and I was afraid to take the chance.

Owen was very understanding, and said that in cases like ours, he was authorized to lower the fee to $2500. I told him I would have to call him back.

Potential Red Flag #1 - The tough sales pitch, followed by a quick concession. Did I see this as a bad thing? No, and that's the hell of being in debt - it makes you more vulnerable to people or businesses who offer you help.

Josh and I talked about it late into the night. At the time we started this process, we had been in the house for exactly 3 years, and had paid our mortgage down by about $5600. It wasn't coming down quickly, but it was coming down. Our biggest fear was that we would reach the point where we couldn't make the mortgage payments and lose the house.

The math seemed obvious - we would pay $2500 up front, and possibly save $200/month for the next 27 years. Of course, there was the danger we would lose our $2500 also. We decided out of desperation to take the chance.

Also, the company's website had scans of successful modifications they had done, and the Better Business Bureau had no complaints on record for them.

And so it started.....