A common question that is asked among the credit card community is, “What happens if you don’t pay your credit card bills?”  While it’s a good question, you have to understand that each credit card community works in different ways.

I wanted to point out a few scenarios that you may face, when you haven’t paid your credit card bills in quite some time.

Your debt gets sold: After a few months to a year, you’re going to soon find out that the credit card companies are soon going to just give up on you.  What they will do is just sell your debt to third party services for pennies on the dollar.  This is when the phone calls are going to start coming in, and there’s no way around it.  It’s always in your best interest to pay off your bills.  These calls will continue until you pay off the debt, or declare bankruptcy.

Show up in court: Many card companies today will summon you to court.  It’s absolutely essential that you show up! If you don’t show up, you’re going to be in for a world of hurt, because this will allow the courts to do just about anything to you.  You’re going to find that you will most likely get your wages garnished, etc.  Show up in court, explain your situation, and work something out.

Your credit goes bad: This is the obvious one, but many people don’t realize how harmful this is.  In today’s world, employers check credit, banks check credit, and so does everyone else.  What you’re going to find out is that if you have bad credit, you’re going to risk getting a job, getting a car loan, mortgage, and everything else.

Lots of fees: If you do plan on paying your card off in the long run, you’re going to run into a lot of fees.  Everything from a late fee, to over the limit fee.  You’re going to get hurt so bad with interest rates as well, you will never know if you’re going to get the balance paid off.

What can I do about this?

The first thing that you can do is always show up to the court cases.  You will want to make sure that you can tell the judge what’s going on, and explain your situation.  By doing so, you’re going to find that the judge will side with you and have the debt collection agency work something out with you.

The next thing that I would recommend is that you haggle with the credit companies.  Try and get some money and work out a lump sum payment.  Many people don’t know this, but you can say settle a $5,000 debt for $2,500.

In the long haul, work hard at paying your debts off.  By doing so, you’re going to feel a lot better, and you’re going to find that you won’t get those harassing letters, or phone calls.