Debt forgiveness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
When you have lots of personal credit card debt, debt forgiveness seems like a pretty attractive arrangement. And there are plenty of people out there who will offer to help you find it. But it’s wise to exercise caution when working with a debt forgiveness company. Many will charge you very high fees for their services. Others may ask you to stop paying your creditor altogether while they negotiate better terms and when negotiations don’t pan out, you can have even more penalties and fees, or even a lawsuit on your hands.
A great alternative to these for-profit agencies is the services of a nonprofit debt management firm such as American Consumer Credit Counseling (ACCC). With free credit counseling and low-cost debt management services, we can help you evaluate all your options for debt forgiveness and make a plan to live life debt free.
Learn more about debt forgiveness with ACCC.
With over 20 years of experience, our certified credit counselors at ACCC have helped thousands of individuals and families pay off their debts and learn how to be debt free in the future. Because we’re a nonprofit agency, our focus is on helping you get out of debt, and rather than boosting our bottom line.
When you schedule your free consultation, our counselors will work with you to get a complete picture of your finances. They’ll discuss all of your options for paying off credit card debt, and fill you in on the advantages and disadvantages of approaches like debt forgiveness, credit card debt settlement, credit card consolidation, bankruptcy, and debt negotiation services. Then they’ll help you choose the approach that makes the most sense for your financial goals. As you work to pay down your debt, we’ll help you every step of the way, providing the support you need to truly become debt free.
Debt management: an alternative to debt forgiveness.
For clients interested in getting out of debt fast, we usually recommend a debt management plan rather than seeking debt forgiveness. In a debt management plan, instead of making multiple payments to different creditors each month, you make a single payment to ACCC and we pay all your creditors for you. That means you have to worry about making just one payment on time each month – we’ll take care of the rest. We’ll also work with your creditors for possible reductions in interest rates and finance charges, as well as forgiveness of over-limit and late fees to reduce the amount you owe so you can pay it off more quickly. Most of our clients on a debt management plan have found they can pay off their debt within five years or less.