Can you legally erase your credit card debt? This is probably what credit card defaulters' dreams are made off. Just imagine all those credit card debt being written off, completely or partially. If you're looking for a no-nonsense way to erase your credit card debt, read on.

Do You Qualify For Debt Erase?

Here's the fact. To legally erase your bad credit card debt, your debt have to be - well, BAD. Have you been way behind on your card payments? Are you constantly chased for payments by debt recovery officers? Or have you received legal letters threatening to bring you to court over your outstanding debt? If you answered "yes" to any of the above, then perfect. You are eligible for credit card debt write off.

Secured Vs Unsecured Debt

The second fact that you have to know to legally erase your debt is that credit card debt is basically unsecured debt. What does that mean? Well, it simply imply that limited actions can be taken against you in the event the debt is not paid up. On the other hand, say you're not making your mortgage payment as you should, you risk losing your home to foreclosure.

In other words, when you have a secured debt, you're bound. Otherwise, if your debt is an unsecured debt, such as the credit card debt you're carrying, you risk nothing more than your credit score tarnished (if it hasn't already anyway) and your borrowing ability affected. Although banks can still seize your property through legal channels,

they usually won't, for practical reasons. Still, this does not make erasing your bad debt legal.

Debt Erase According To The Law

The biggest fact about legally erasing your credit card debt is that you are actually protected by the law. If you have not paid your card outstanding debt in 6 months or more, you can safely assume that the collector chasing you for money is a third party collector. In fact, depending on how badly behind your outstanding credit card debt is, this may be the primary, secondary or the tertiary debt collector going after you. Now, this is where it gets interesting.

Some people call this a debt "loophole", but it's sufficient to say that things usually go to your favor from this point on. Since the likelihood of you actually repaying the debt is dim, the collectors will be inclined to accept a settlement amount from you, anywhere from 75% to 40% of what you owe. The best part is you can legally erase the same debt by entering a claim requesting the collectors to prove that you owe the mentioned sum.

What this means is that you can challenge your collector to produce proof of your debt. In most cases, they simply can't - as your debt have changed hands so many times that the documentation is either inaccurate, incomplete or lost. And that's how you can legally write off your credit card debt.

As you can see now, this information is extremely powerful to really erase away those high interest credit card balance or at least write off a good chunk of it. Since your creditors are not going to let you off without a fight, you must arm yourself with the complete processes and corresponding laws to execute your debt erase effort.

Scott Stephen, a three times bankrupt turned debt author agrees that "Knowing your rights and what to expect from debt collectors can give you the confidence to protect yourself....and to work out an arrangement that is satisfactory to everyone involved". He also warned that "While there are many professional collection agencies that would not break the law to collect a debt, there are also unscrupulous agencies that will do anything to get paid".

Therefore, the key to debt settlement, debt elimination and debt erase (that you can easily do by yourself) is to know how. Get your facts right from Scott Stephen's from my debt erase site, where he'll also include the actual letters you can send to request complete write off of your credit card debt.