Monkey, I'm a case in point. I have massive credit card debt and can only make minimum payments. Why? Because I was a few days late on several payments when my mother was deathly ill in the hospital.
I had restructured my own debt through balance transfers to very low interest rates for the life of the loan and I could afford the payments. After I was late on a couple of payments, BOA and AT&T raised my interest rates sky high. As a result, over half of my monthly payments go to pay down the debt. It's going nowhere.
The other day BOA called and said I was a hardship case and they wanted to decrease my debt by cancelling my credit cards with All lenders and creating a loan at a substantially lower balance.
I refused, asking for a reduction of my interest rates. They refused BECAUSE they said I was a hardship case, i.e., my expenses still exceed my income.
There ya go, crooks.