2005年NPR美国国家公共电台八月-Money Myths that Lead to Financial Proble（在线收听）

And now for Money Myths, a new feature from Michelle Singletary. She is Day to Day’s personal finance contributor, and a regular Tuesday guest. And as the title implies, Michelle will try to correct some financial myths we all may have. She spoke earlier with my colleague, Alex Chadwick.

The first myth you are going to tackle today, Michelle, what is it?
Cosigning. I get this quite often. People would say:" Cosigning is not a big deal. I’m just the backer." If you believe that, back away from the loan document coz you don’t know what you are doing. Cosigning or being a co- borrower means that you are equally responsible for that loan. There’re lots of parents who'd cosign for their kids coming out of a college for their car or their apartment. Recognize, that if your kid does not make that payment, they're coming after you, and it may be after the first missed payment. They gotta ring you up and go:” Mama, send us some money.” Coz they are late, even if they pay, that can go onto your credit report.

How about this one, you can't get credit after you file for bankruptcy?

Oh, that is so not true. Lots of folks believe that, now, you know I think that you should file for bankruptcy as an extreme last resort, but if you do, don’t beat yourself up thinking I would never get credit or it 's gonna take me 10 or 20 years. The fact of the matter is that because you file bankruptcy, you are gonna get a lot of credit card offers. The creditors know that you can't file for bankruptcy for another 8 years. It used to be 6, but the new changes in the bankruptcy law added 2 more years. So you can get credit, of course, it's gonna cost you a lot of money.

And you should really be careful.

That’s absolutely right. I always encourage people who file for bankruptcy ,who want a re-established credit to get a secure credit card. All that means is that you're putting some money in a bank account, say 250 to 500 dollars. You get a credit card, you charge a couple of little things, and then you pay it off every month on time, then you'll get regular credit card offers.

How about this one? Student loans are dischargeable through bankruptcy. And I used to hear this from kids when, back when I was in school, hey, you know, I'm gonna get out with / loans, but I’m to file bankruptcy and the problem will go away.

It will not go away, and the government will come after you. They can take your tax return check, or go onto your wages. Listen, there used to be a time where a lot of people would default on their student loans and shame on you if you did. But now, you can’t do that, it is extremely hard if not impossible to get rid of eh, student loans in “Bankruptcy ”.There is a little clause that will allow you but it’s a hardship case meaning you have no capacity to pay back this money ever in your life.

Hey, I just said I heard about that, I didn’t do it.

Ha, Ha… The thing that really roused me about is lots of people go to school and I know that they've incurred a lot of debt, and it’s very stressful to them. But if you got the loan, and you got the education, you had the obligation to pay that debt back.

All right, final money myth. If a credit card holder dies with a balance, the debts wiped out, the estate does not have to pay.

Not true. That's a money myth. If you die, your debts do not die with you. If your estate has some money, the trustee or executor is obligated to pay those debts. If you are a relative or friend then you did not take on that debt as an obligation, you are not obligated to pay that back. Now ,there’s a caveat: If the person dies and has some money, and you take that money, before creditors are paid, they can come after you. Because of course that’s money from the estate they should have gone to pay for the debts.

Michelle Singletary writes the syndicated column The Color of Money for the Washington Post. And she’s Day to Day’s personal finance contributor with regular appearances on Tuesdays. If you are wondering if something financial that you heard about is actually real and true, write to Michelle. Go to our homepage npr.org, click on the “contact us” button. You can put money myth in the subject line. Michelle thanks again.

You are so welcome.