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Credit Card Debt Services

Debt Counseling
Debt Management
Debt Negotiation
Debt Consolidation
Debt Settlement
Debt Elimination
Debtor Prospecting
Credit Repair Organizations

There are two kinds of debt service firms.

1. Those that counsel you on how to manage your money, pay your creditors, and if necessary negotiate and settle with them.

2. Those that ask you to pay them, so they can negotiate with and pay or resist (for you) your creditors.

If properly experienced and credentialed, the first kind can be very helpful and affordable. Or, they can be commissioned go-betweens for the credit card banks.

The second kind can be expensive, ineffective, bring damage to your credit rating and can cause your creditors to blind side you with arbitration or lawsuit proceedings.

Those firms promise to take care of your debt problems for you. They communicate with your creditors so you do not have to. The problem is using them puts you out of the loop with your creditors. You do not know what is being communicated about your finances. You do not know how your creditors are responding. Tread carefully with these firms, or even better, avoid them.

The online debt forums offer many stories of debtors being victimized by these debt service organizations. Quoted on newyorktimes.com, Deanne Loonin, a senior lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, has investigated [these debt service firms]. “It’s possible there are honest ones,” she said, “but I assume they aren’t until proven otherwise.”

The terms debt counseling, debt management, debt negotiation, debt consolidation, or debt settlement, and debt elimination are used to the let-us-take-care-of-your-problem-for-you debt service firms’ marketing advantage. What these terms actually mean depends on which debt service organization you are talking to and how they promise to eliminate credit card debt for you.

There is more in the Credit Card Debt Survival Guide.

Chapter 4: Credit Card Debt Services . . .  pp 4.1-23

• Debt Management and Debt Counseling Services         
• Evaluating Credit Counseling Agencies 
• Can this type of debt service fit into your credit-card-debt relief plan?   
• Credit Card Debt Consolidation           
• Credit Card Debt Consolidation Loans
• Credit Card Debt Negotiation or Settlement     
• Credit Card Debt Elimination Scams    
• Credit Repair Organizations (CROs)