There may be times in your life that you may lose your job, or get yourself into too much debt and are unable to pay your credit card payments. Unfortunately this can start a whole chain of events that can be lasting and costly.

Your credit score is based on what information the credit bureau has on you, such as how much debt you have, what is your debt to income ratio, if you have been late on your bills, and how much credit someone should give you. It is a 3 digit number from 300 to 900 that can affect you for the rest of your life. Falling behind on your credit card payments can greatly affect what your score is because each time you are late the lower your score falls. The lower your score is the less likely you are to get credit anywhere.

If you are 30 days behind you will start receiving phone calls from the creditor asking where the money is. At 60 days late they start to call more often and threaten you with further action. At 90 days they close the account and write it off to a collection agency. Writing it off means that they have essentially given up on you and have transferred your account to a company that specializes in regaining the debt that you owe them. You will then owe the entire balance and not just the late payments.

If you know that you will be laid off from work, or you have a very large expense coming up, it is best to call your creditor directly. You can usually make arrangements with them to work out a hardship plan for you and what you owe them. If they are unable to make arrangements then the best thing you can do is to borrow the money from family or friends to at least make the minimum payments. If you can't do that then you may consider transferring the balance to a lower interest card or a special offer of 0% financing.

You need to look around for other options such as possibly refinancing your house to pay down your debt, or to take on extra work such as a part time job you can do in your spare time. It may be rough going but falling behind on your credit card payments is an easy way to set you up for a life of hardship. You will no longer get the great APR rates that you are used to; you may not be able to buy a house, or a car. It could possibly bring you into bankruptcy which can stay on your credit report up to 10 years.