Stand Coa
Confession of a Downtown Credit Counselor
Just over five years ago, I remember making a trip to Brooklyn Polytech Institute faculty and staff A free seminar credit and debt quote. At that time I was representing a public non-profit consumer credit counseling agency I co-founded back in 1996, and this free seminars were an important part of maintaining compliance with the IRS. They were free to all attendees, and free to the organization, agency or business hosting. Back in 02 and 03, consumer credit counseling was under greater scrutiny and mistrust growing largely due to the bankruptcy filing of American Debt, the nation's largest consumer credit counseling agency. Ameri Debt was caught mismanaging funds and misrepresenting themselves to the public, call all non-profit credit counseling in question. As time passed, more agencies were under investigation for funneling profits to for-profit entities and misrepresentation of their services to the public. As a 34yr old, still clinging to his last shreds of idealism, I remember thinking aloud on that day in September I took the R train to Brooklyn, that "nothing is sacred anymore, nothing …."
As a small nonprofit that could not afford mass advertising on TV or radio, we made ourselves speaking engagements and word of mouth referrals as far back as the late 1990's, as our primary source of advertising. The seminar route was not new to us. Since the late nineties we had talked free church groups and urban development competitions during the five districts. And in 2002 and 2003, we expanded our EAP to various programs throughout New York City in hopes of building a customer base and possibly educating a few people for the inherent dangers of credit card debt, predatory lending and how to manage money well for unconventional real estate purchases.
As usual, it was I am armed with an arsenal of educational information from the American Center for Credit Information, HUD, and Fannie Mae. The load several small workbooks designed to help potential First home buyers in the decision. I think a title, "Knowing when the time comes for you," read like a teen dating guide. The others, such as the "Base budgeting, "and" Money in Motion "also had its perverse dummied clear definitions of basic financial terminology. But that's not to say that without any worthy educational value. But I knew from previous experience that most, if not all, of these books would never see light of day. What most people in these seminars for it to unlock the secrets of credit repair using the dispute form letter format to learn. She also came to heat the legally enforceable statute of limitation of bad debt, or advice on expunging an outstanding appeal. based on free follow-up telephone counseling I would extend to seminar attendees, I am confident to say that money management technique or the consequences of misunderstanding a balloon payment or adjustable rate sub-prime loans were very low on the totem pole when it came to the content of these seminars.
For me, this seminar will be yet another bad example for the preaching of the dangers of predatory lending practices and sub-prime loans was a complete and total waste of time. All people wanted to hear was how to navigate the shortcomings in the credit scoring and reporting system, so they can get a mortgage. After all, everyone did it. Mortgages were latest craze, or addiction, depending on how one looked at them. Personally though, I grew increasingly pissed off about the hypocrisy surrounding the most recent credit and debt counseling 'industry', where as our beneficiaries, commercial banks and credit card companies, insisted that our funding would be strictly subject to our educational value to the communities in which we serve, and not on how much money we were back to them through our consolidation programs. That statement still stands as one of the most striking I have ever lies heard in my life when all credit counseling and credit education was now done by telephone and the Internet. Seminars had been replaced by chat rooms and video streaming. And now there was support 20 minutes from a meeting with a certified credit counselor by phone, who was more interested in enrolling you in a debt consolidation plan than the provision of decent information on budgeting and money management.
My office face to face method of counseling and education were dead and buried. Banks and credit card companies are as reliable as the economy gains when it comes to putting up the facade of social responsibility. It's just a good thing, I think. They are really not like we stand on ceremony preaching of the inherent dangers of their products too loudly. And she did not want us in the community blatantly undermining the subprime market because the money to be made there. After all, as a beleaguered mortgage broker put it to me after I had warned a contingent of 300 first-time homebuyers on getting subprime loans – ". Who are you to trash these people dream" Good question, I thought – who was I?
The best I could hope to win on this special day in Brooklyn, was a letter, on stationery BPI, the director of the EAP program verify my appearance on the site. I typically have to wait months for such a letter, and sometimes they never came. But we still need to show the powers that be to keep off our backs. It also meant another days away from my office does not address the backlog of debt management proposals that I needed to send to many credit card companies on behalf of an increasingly growing number of ordinary people who had been the victim of the old American virtue of buy now and pay later. They were ordinary people who have grown far too much credit given of their annual income. Ordinary people who really never learned the basics of budgeting. Ordinary people who always believed that "next year will Be my breakout year. "They were ordinary people who now had to pay.
It was also around this time five years ago, where I first starting hearing the term "subprime mortgage" on a fairly regular basis. I heard it over the years, but the term was reserved for people whose credit scores were too far gone for anything conventional in the mortgage market. Previously, sub-prime was synonymous with hard-money loans. Suddenly she had a newer meaning as the sub-prime market, now supported by more conventional memory organizations, was busy in full corridor, driving a number of mortgage specialists and lenders in a frenzy with the sea of money off of the extension of loans to individuals with this difficult already compromised credit. I also remember thinking to myself in no uncertain terms, on one day this will cause some real problems.
On many occasions, too many to recall, I had the conversation with my dedicated, but tired business partner on the day when everyone should stop abruptly and completely re-evaluate their ideals, attitude and behavior especially when it came to borrow money. Our conversations often left us both in complete disbelief at the shortsightedness of not only banking but also of human condition itself. Still packed in the hope that one day justice would prevail, we would comment on the great length about thoughtlessness that people came over when the chance to quickly make money came into play. It seemed so academic us that sooner or later everyone would be a swift and severe repercussions from the wrath of subprime loans, and feel again, would be left to the innocent to clean up the mess. To what extent the average, everyday American would pick up the tab on this, we hadn'ta idea. But we thought it would be far worse than what we had experienced in previous years.
Anything remotely comparable has come to mind with the collapse of the dot-com industry in the late nineties, which culminated the market crash back in 1901. Business in the credit agreement and debt counseling industry has experienced a surge in autumn 1901 and winter of 2002 as it looked thousands people lost jobs in New York City seemingly overnight. Suddenly a whole new breed of debtor appeared. Someone who had never been in such a position where credit cards were now used as a way to survive, rather than a convenient type of payment alternatives. A number of people we have tried to then help with debt back to management plans and the monthly budget arrears on their repayment plans. Many declared bankruptcy a chapter 7 bankruptcy all debts are erased at that time. And par usual, the losses were simply passed on to the timely cardholder in the form of a reimbursement or an increase of some sort.
Our early prediction of the subprime meltdown, however, presented an entirely different sort of crisis in terms of size and type. This would be an unprecedented financial devastation and desperation used on a large scale. Markets would be vulnerable to collapse around the world. Financial institutions, even some of the most renowned and legendary, would disintegrate into a snap. jobs would be lost. Retirement packages would evaporate. People's life savings would go straight down the tubes. Full on financial Armageddon would be the hand. Back in 03 and 04, I was accused several times of his dramatic.
I began to be somewhat of a zealot on the subject and had often of my family, friends and colleagues in conflict with me. Many of them would patiently watch me go off on one of my animated tangents about how one day we would have to face this beast and it was not going to be beautiful, I'd stammer. In retrospect, I think many of these little rants or furies were rooted in the resentment I harbored toward credit and debt counseling industry. It's true. I hated my own. In 2004, many of the nation's largest consumer credit counseling agencies had their nonprofit status withdrawn because of mismanagement of their trust accounts and their ties to for-profit businesses. They had brilliantly succeeded in destroying the legitimacy of the distinction and I had worked so hard to achieve and. Refine I had in fact, the only established New York State Licensed, COA Accredited non-profit public ever. I worked my ass off for 8 years to reach the merits, and I never cut back, took favors and pocketed a dime that did not belong to me. In short, I think I was pissed because the same greed was now permeated my own industry expose hypocrisy. But that still did not know I was wrong about what was coming. And consumes a little crazy, yes. But wrong?
I started this stock and the lending rate fluctuations in an obsessive way look think the dominoes that were to start any day now. At one point I started losing weight and sleep if banks continue with their funding cuts and my job was now in eminent danger. When we proposed a merger in the works not with a larger independent agency, I would been curator myself back in 2004. Just to a nonprofit credit counseling agency to bacon, you can back tens if not hundreds, of thousands. No mind, I thought our services When this question was the result of foreclosures came benefactors would be throwing money at us to help maintain economic equilibrium.
But, the sub-prime loans brigade marched on apparently only started in 2005, and part of 1906 as well. Can not anyone else see this for what it was? I would hear stories from friends about mortgage brokers who would advise them to walk on all their credit card debt and use the money for redemption as a down payment on a piece of property. "Sod your cards with MBNA and Fusa, I can still always get a loan despite your payment history, one of my friends was told. And the initial rate for refinancing 12-24 months the field went on to say. "At least you something you can sell yourself." How American, I thought.
For whatever reason, maybe the impending doom of the inevitable crash or my own personal insolvency, I started a sense of urgency to my work, especially when it came to educating the public. I took every opportunity to voice my hostility what happened. Even my students to understand and manage your credit and debt 'class at the learning annex not escape my rants. funding for the agency remained significantly decline until it was almost completely abolished save for a few faithful, but an insignificant portion patrons this was due to maximizing quarterly returns for the banks who funded us, but I think it was about sniffing each voice was there preaching the evils of sub-prime loans. The banks loved the fact that we used to help them collection efforts, as a friendly alternative to traditional collection practices offers budgeting and sound financial advice, but they clearly did not that we warn people about the dangers of their products.
Unfortunately for me, but in 2005 began to wane and the merger discussions with my office would break, I started my own mortality as a credit counselor feel more than ever. funding was stripped down to basic operational costs, leaving little or no room for salary. The work I ever been so self-esteem is deemed necessary and was worth literally nothing for anyone. Here I was on the verge of my 37 birthday, looking back on my last 9 years work with nothing to personally show. No wife and children. I had sacrificed my life for that matter years earlier. No money stashed away when all I ever went back to the bureau. I was so broke many of my clients were. And, no real job skills transferable. The last two years looking for work is an exercise in futility so many work in commercial banks or finance.
I tried to save a number of good I could have done. And I suppose on some level, I did. Would occasionally I get a card from a client or seminar participant or former student who had my class telling me that something I said had helped them in getting their personal finances back in order. But I can not shake that nagging feeling that I never allowed enough time or opportunity to vocalize my opinions and coordinate real change in the form of appropriate regulation. Because if I had, maybe none of this imminent danger on us. But again, that was I think I might have made a real difference anyway. I was just a child playing in lower Manhattan businessman. On my desk, we never had any real money behind us, but we were consistently some of the largest banks in the world, a challenge to a public fist fight. We went to the plate with anyone who wants to listen to us about the impending disaster. Afterwards I was screaming at the top of my lungs for people to know of the subprime loans catastrophe that would one day make us financially impotent, but nobody really wanted to hear in an era of pseudo-prosperity and growth. "Go back in your box, creditman. We call if we need you to clean up the mess. "Only problem is the mess at hand and I'm long past …. …
About the Author
Jim Steele is still an active board member of CACC – Credit Advocate Counseling Corp. the non profit credit counseling agency he co-founded in 1996. He retired from his position as Vice President in 2006. A graduate from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Jim still lives and works in New York City
What is a COA for her kind of music term?
What does Coa satnd for or what it is I saw on ebay is it something to do with music memorabilia?
A Certificate of Authenticity (COA) is a seal or a small sticker on one's own computer program, t-shirt, sweater, or any other memorabilia item, especially in the world computers and sports, which is designed to show that the item is authentic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Authenticity
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