Tricia It was my understanding the opt out stops anyone from taking a look see at your credit to know how much credit they will offer when sending a credit card offer?? As far as anyone you already have a relationship with I just called the few we got and ask to be put on their opt out list. I even opted out of our own bank, credit union and savings institutions. The only thing I get is statements and notices when a CD is coming due. We didnt get any junk mail for years until a few months ago. I will be turning 65 this year and am now getting 8 to10 offers a week from every insurance company in the world. At first I was calling and asking them to please take me off the mailing list but now have just given up and shred everything. I would like to know how I got on these lists but havent found an answer yet. SS and Medicare both say they do not share any information. I am even getting this junk addressed to me at my dads address. Very frustrating for him. We dont have home mail delivery so even my post master if upset that he cant get all my mail in my P.O. Box. I told him to just send it back but of course he cant. As far a credit scores I will never understand how that works. About 12 or so years ago our accountant ask me how many credit card I had in my wallet. We got to figuring it out and came up with an obscene amount of available credit. I had cards for way to many department stores that I never used. I had had them for years so the limits were high. I closed everything but the one credit card that was tied to our checking account and the debit card for the same account. I had our bank set out credit limit at ten thousand so it never goes any higher. I pay it off every month. I also had them set the limit on our debit card higher so each of us has a thousand dollar a day limit. When DH ordered me a new car a few years ago he was told we have the highest credit score the dealership had ever seen and mine was 2 points higher that his. I havent worked in over 20 years so how does that happen? I check our accounts every morning as soon as I get on the computer and pay the credit card from the checking account as soon as the cycle ends. We have one of those very old gold accounts so we dont have any fees or pay for anything including cashiers check and travelers checks. The manager at the bank told me to never close it. I pay all our bills on line and never have had a problem. So my next question is should I keep the checking account statements or just shred them? Claudia

It sounds like with the number of credit cards you are currently holding, along with the large balance on the citibank card, you would be a great candidate for a REPUTABLE debt settlement program. I say reputable because it is well known that the majority of debt settlement companies have taken their fees first before they ever settle one of your accounts. However, new FTC legislation bans this practice, and as of October 27th, 2010, debt settlement companies must settle at least one of your debts before they can charge you for their services. You may genuinely benefit from working with an accredited debt settlement company. By doing so, the company will negotiate with your creditors on your behalf to help secure a settlement that is a percentage of what you originally owed. Great settlements are usually somewhere between 40-60% of the original debt. If you do choose to do this be aware that your credit will initially suffer, but that with more cash flow to go around because it is not being eaten up in minimum payments and interest, you can actually begin to repair your own credit by making solid financial decisions. In reality, you most likely already have poor credit due to your current situation, so you seem to have nothing to lose by seeking reputable, outside help. You can get ideas for repairing your credit from myfico.com. Further, I would be wary of going with a credit counseling agency. Though they may have a 'non-profit' status, they are in reality usually set up by the credit card companies themselves in order to recover as much of the original debt as possible. Nobody works for 'free.' Credit counseling works by contacting your creditors to lower the overall interest rate of a debt. Though this may save you some money, you would be better off finding an accredited debt settlement company to negotiate for you. Arm yourself with perseverance and a solid understanding of all your options. Once you set your mind on a plan, follow through- debt does not have to consume your entire life, and can be paid off in time.

I don't really have a suggestion for a cash rebate card, but I think my experience with Chase is important here. 4 years ago I lost my job. I had quite a balance on my Chase card. It had just been transferred using one of those promotional offers for 0% interest. I don't even think I had gotten the first statement when I lost my job. The day after I got canned I called all of my creditors and asked if they could help, lower the minimum payment, lower the interest rate, grant a diferral, something, anything! The person I talked to at Chase told me that as long as I was making the minimum monthly payment they would have to assume that I COULD make the monthly payment, and there wasn't anything they could do for me. However, if I missed a payment, I could call them when I got my next statement and at that point they could work out a payment plan that would be easier for me. So, I did exactly what he told me to do. Except that I made half of the payment, instead of not paying anything, when my statement came. I figured that would look better when I asked for help, I could say "Look, I can make half the payment, just not the whole thing." When my next statment came, showing that I hadn't payed my entire minimum payment, I called and told them what I had been told and asked for help. This is where it got really fun. They couldn't come up with a better payment plan for me because to do that they would have to base my payment on my income...and since I was unemployed I didn't have any income to base a payment plan on. They wouldn't use my unemployment check as a basis for a payment plan. So there was still nothing they could do for me. The kicker: Missing a minimum payment meant my 0% interest rate was gone. Now I was being charged something over 18%. Then there was more fun, about a year later. I had gotten a new job, moved back to the state I was from, and transferred my husband's car loan to a credit card because the interest rate was lower. Adding that to the amount that had been on the cards when I lost my job and the amount I had to charge while I was unemployed (including tuition for my husband to go to truck driving school) and my credit card debt was pretty damn substantial. Suddenly I noticed on my Chase bill that the interest being charged was only 36 cents less than my minimum payment, and I knew it hadn't been like that before. So I looked at the interest rate.....they were charging me 24%!!!! I called them, all kinds of pissed off, to find out why. Well, apparently they pull your credit report every once in a while. When they pulled mine they saw how much debt I had, and decided to change my status to a higher risk catergory. Because I was now a higher risk borrower, they raised my interest rate. Makes sense, right? Raise my interest rate so that this high risk borrower has an even harder time paying you back!!! As soon as I had an introductory rate offer from another credit card I transferred every penny off of that Chase card and I haven't used it since. We don't deal with Chase anymore. The only reason I currently have a Chase card is because Chase bought BankOne, and I had a really good interest rate with BankOne. So I'm keeping it until the introductory rate runs out and then I'm getting rid of it. As for rewards for cards, I've got a card that gives me points. It's from MyPoints. You sign up with them, they send you e-mails that you get 5 point for just clicking on the link. Some of them offer you hundreds of points for buying something at the link. For instance, they have a deal with (a webstore that the filter won't let me mention because they've been spammed about them before) where you get 10 points per dollar you spend there. Other's are like 50 points for filling out a survey, 20 points for signing up for a newsletter, 500 points for signing up for Columbia house, etc. I rarely take the offers, just click and get my 5 points. I can rack up like 30 points a day this way. And they have an associated Visa card through Providian where I get 1 point for every dollar I spend. Once you accumulate enough points you can trade them in for gift cards, either to stores or they have one called Webcertificates where you get basically a mastercard account number that you can use anywhere online. Or you can pay a small fee to Webcertificates and get a real card that you can use in stores. For instance, I just redeemed 3250 points for a $25 gift card to Linens N Things. That sounds like a lot of points, but if you are using the card and paying it off all the time you'll rack up points quick. Plus the e-mails take me all of 2 minutes a day to click and delete, giving me up to like 900 points a month. I don't use the card itself often, but if you were going to use it a lot it would definitely pay off. It doesn't come out to as good a rebate as like Discover (which I think is 2%) but if you also do the e-mails and use some of their deals (like the deal at that unmentionable web store, as well as other great deals just like it) you'll rack up points quick!

Thank you all for your suggestions. However, it unfortunately seems that here in Europe these cards are limited. I only found two cash back cards that pay money, one I'm not eligible for as you need a very large monthly spend for it to pay out (no point spending more to save), and the other is from a company I simply don't like. Other cards were linked to expensive or non-local shops I don't shop at. However, I discovered that the supermarket I almost always shop at offers a card that allows you to collect club card points anywhere you use it, which relate to 1% off everything, and double points in the store that issues it. I already spend around £1200 a year in this shop for many food and household items, so I will be able to indirectly turn all the points I collect in to real money savings. You can also turn the points in to vouchers of higher value, but they're for various products I wouldn't normally buy, so I'll just use them to save on things I do buy. If anyone is considering one of these cards, I'd suggest checking out your usual shops to see if any of them offer credit cards with rewards. Being able to use the rewards in shops you can easily get to and consider good value for money is worth far more than collecting seemingly huge rewards for shops you don't like, can't easily get to, and potentially are more expensive, thus reducing the value of the rewards.