"Maxed out"

[Nishu]

Hey thanks for bringing this up. I watched it on netflix a couple days ago. It was a real eye opener.

[ladyeeyore7]

Well let me give you an old fool's advice. My hubby is self-employed as a legal investigator/process server. My BIL is a collections attorney. We make part of our living on debts gone bad finding and serving co-signers. I have seen my hubby come home almost in tears because he had to serve the nicest people papers to garnish their paycheck. He said that eventually the lawyer would be taking their home because they had co-signed for someone who was tragically disabled in a car accident and had no means of repayment. The person who was disabled filed for bankruptcy and was cleared but the co-signer is still held responsible. Of course there is always discussion about whether that is legal or not. The truth of the matter is, and we see this every day, whether it's legal or not if it goes thru the court and they rule against you the fight to prove it's illegal can sometimes cost you more money than the original loan. Another example of this was when my brother asked my parents to co-sign a car loan. My parents decided instead to put the loan and car in their own name. (I didn't totally understand the logic in this but oh well). About 2 years later the SIL filed for divorce (my brother didn't know until he came home to an empty house) and the court awarded the still-financed car in my parents name to her stating that since she and my brother made all the car payments it was obvious who's car it was. My parents talked to their lawyer who advised them it would cost them more to fight it than to pay off the car. I guess you could say the moral to the story is regardless of how responsible someone is financially not everything is in their control. If you co-sign for someone be sure you can afford their payments!

[joshmamabear]

Since no good offers might be available to you, ask someone with good credit to co-sign the application.

someone who co-signs an application w/o reading the entire microscopic fine prints may find out sooner or later they are held responsible for someone else's debt.

It is NOT smart to co-sign anything that involves debt or you may find creditors running after you in case the main signor defaults.

I'd rather tell someone who asks me to co-sign to get their own secured CC and stick to spending within 25 to 30 percent of their line of credit. then make sure to pay the full balance each month. they can build their credit history this way w/o asking favors to anyone.