3 true credit card horror stories and advice on how to survive

My worst experience with credit cards was a mess of my own making. After getting married, I added my then-husband to several of my credit card accounts as an authorized user. We’d never talked about our credit scores in detail. I only knew he didn’t have great credit so I thought allowing him to use my cards could help him build credit while also making it easier to manage our joint finances.

Fast-forward just a few months later and the balances on those cards had quickly ballooned to more than $30,000 in largely frivolous purchases. My first mistake was not talking about money with my spouse beforehand; my second was adding him to my cards without laying down some ground rules about how they could be used. I got to keep the debt as a parting gift when the marriage ended, and it took me years to pay it all off and get my credit back in shape. The lesson? First, communication about credit and money is everything in marriage. And second, don’t take adding someone to your credit card as an authorized user lightly because you could end up with a huge pile of debt you hadn’t planned on”.

“Several years ago, before banking apps were around, I made a phone payment on a business credit card using the wrong bank account which couldn’t cover the payment. I realized my error almost immediately and called customer service to try to cancel the payment and switch the account. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do so I decided to wait until the payment was unsuccessful and then pay it with the correct account. Wrong decision.

What I didn’t know was that the credit card company’s system would continue to try to make the withdrawal multiple times if denied initially. The ensuing details were quite unpleasant and resulted in hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees, a negative six-figure balance in my personal account, and hours of time sitting in my local branch with customer service trying to explain what happened.

Fortunately, the account I intended to pay the card balance with was with the same bank so they were somewhat sympathetic, but I was stuck paying some of the fees. Needless to say, after that fiasco, I always make sure that I am both paying credit cards with the proper account and that there are sufficient funds to cover the payment.”

“My husband and I have been married for nine years. Shortly after we got married, I lost my job. He was making $10 an hour. I was making $9 an hour. It was challenging because you look at some high school kids who make minimum wage who were making more than us with college degrees.

I was fortunate to get another job, but then within that same year, they downsized, and they dissolved my position, so I lost my job twice in less than a year.

For a number of years we were a single income household, as I continued to search for a new job. During that time, it was really difficult to pay our bills and things really did start to snowball. Finally, I was to get two different jobs to make up the difference. But by then we had racked up around $90,000 in debt.”

Additional insight from Michael Micheletti of Freedom Debt Relief

When you are facing a situation where debt is taking over your life, there are financial tools and services that can provide you with a clear path forward – many of these solutions do not require you to take on additional debt but directly address and reduce what you owe. Remember, it took you a number of years to get into debt and it will take some time to get out of debt. What is important to know is that you can manage your debt with discipline and the right partner.