Do debt negotiation services work?
If you have a lot of debt, you may be thinking about using debt negotiation services to help you pay it off. Firms offering debt negotiation services often say they can secure deep discounts from your creditors, promising that you’ll only pay pennies on the dollar to retire your debt.
The truth is that while this may seem like a great way of getting out of debt fast, most for-profit debt negotiation services may actually leave you deeper in debt. Their fees can be quite steep, and while they promise that you’ll end up saving money through discounts on your debt, your creditors are not obligated to accept the offers that your debt negotiation services firm puts forth. And you may actually end up with more fees and penalties or be subject to a lawsuit if you refuse to pay your creditors anything, as some debt negotiation services suggest.
For objective information about debt negotiation services and help figuring out the best way to pay off your debts, consider the credit counseling services from American Consumer Credit Counseling (ACCC).
ACCC: the truth about debt negotiation services.
ACCC is a nonprofit debt management center dedicated to educating consumers about ways of lowering credit card debt and learning to live life debt free. We provide free credit counseling and low-fee debt management services.
What is credit counseling? Credit counseling is an educational process that teaches consumers how to pay off current debt and how to avoid debt in the future. Our highly trained counselors are certified experts in credit counseling. They educate consumers about the pros and cons of options like debt negotiation services. They help you identify the most effective ways of paying down your debt, and will explain how some options, like debt negotiation services, can actually harm your credit rating and leave you deeper in debt. They’ll offer advice on how to handle calls and threats from debt recovery agencies, and work with you to create a plan to pay off your debt over time – usually within five years or less.
Debt management – an alternative to debt negotiation services.
For many consumers, we recommend a debt management plan as a more effective way of paying off debt than debt negotiation services. A debt management plan involves consolidating all the payments you make each month to credit card companies and other creditors, and making a single payment to ACCC instead. We pay each of your creditors for you, ensuring that payments are made on time. We also enter into a kind of debt negotiation with your creditors to seek reductions in your interest rates and finance charges, and to end over-limit fees and late fees, helping to reduce the amount of money you owe.
