How does a credit card “get their money back” if you dont pay the bills?

Jonathan: How does a credit card “get their money back” if you dont pay the bills?
Say you go to a store like Sears and get a credit card with them. Over about 10 years, you buy quite a few things on it. You don’t pay the bills anymore.. what do they do? To they “Repossess” the stuff like a car?

Answers and Views:

Answer by TaxGurl
They can sue you for the unpaid balance. When they win, they can garnish your wages until the balance, interest, finance charges, and legal fees have been paid.

Answer by Slimick
First….they “get their money back” by charging everyone high interest rates…..These people have this down to an exact science and can predict their losses in advance.

If you default and the amount is low…they’ll probably sell your account for pennies on the dollar to a collection agency…which will try to collect the entire amount themselves………If it’s a large amount…they may sue…….Every creditor is different….some might walk away from thousands of dollars of defaulted debt…while others might sue for amounts under one thousand.

Answer by STEVE P
If you do not pay your bills your name will go on the bad credit list which means that sometime when you might need a loan you won’t be able to get one.

Answer by fabled.life
Indirectly – credit card companies charge higher interest rates for people with higher risk. Obviously, this isn’t “getting their money back” if you default on what you owe them.

Directly – they sell your bad debt to a debt collector that harasses you until you’re forced into bankruptcy or you pay the debt.

Answer by Mike
It’s an unsecured debt. They cant come and repossess.

They can, however, sue you…. and before they do, they are charging you 30-40% interest and late fees, so the ballance, and they amount they sue you for, can be far more then the amount of the purchases.

They can get a judgement, and garnish your wages… and tack on even more fees.

Answer by revilo
Nope, for the most part, most of what you put on your Sears charge is “unsecured” credit. First recognize that Sears has a credit card program so they can sell more stuff–it is easy for you to buy stuff with a credit card and then make monthly payments. They want you to buy stuff that they have at least what is called a “keystone mark-up”–that means if they pay $ 50 for a thing, they will charge you $ 100 for that thing.

So, the small number of people that pay them $ 0 and are noncollectable and can not be sued, lower their profits. But remember most people pay them. And many of their customers have APR’s in the 25% range. So between what they make on the retail mark-up and on the interest they charge you on the credit card, and the fact that only maybe 2%-3% of the customers accounts are charged off–they come out fine–believe me you do not need to feel sorry for them–but do pay your bill!

Answer by Tigh
They sell the debt to a collection company and wright off the rest.

Answer by Steve R
They can take you to court. But in the meantime, your credit score will be trashed. This means you won’t be able to get a loan for a car, a mortgage, or rental property. You won’t be able to buy things unless you pay cash for it.