(Continued from the main Credit Card Addiction Stories page)

She has no savings and her husband's retirement fund is hardly enough to retire on. They both have health problems and felt that if they didn't act fast and do something drastic, they were doomed to a retirement into poverty. "I saw this infomercial on T.V." said Candace, "It taught me how to buy property, fix it up and turn a profit." Candace maxed out her credit cards and bought her first "fixer-upper." The infomercial promises seemed to be accurate. She began collecting rent for her new property and her calculations predicted that the property would pay for itself within 5 years. "If one house is good, ten is even better" was Candace's philosophy. She took out any loan she could get, maxed out every card and bought more and more property. "I'm making money" she said, but upon further questioning, she admitted that she was paying interest rates as high as 12-24% and she was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.