Everywhere in the world today, people are becoming submerged in debt. Everywhere you look, it is possible to purchase today and pay tomorrow, consumers are steadily falling into this trap everyday, and before they know it, they are so far in debt they are unsure how to get out. This is where debt counseling comes in; however you need to be made aware of debt counseling frauds. Some are only in place to take your money.
Legitimate debt counseling companies do not claim to be not-for-profit if they are not. There have been cases where a company has claimed this and ended up swindling their client’s money. There are ways to protect yourself; you should check a debt counseling company’s reputation thoroughly before investing your time and effort into them.
Never conduct business with a company that requires any upfront fees or asks you for voluntary contributions. This is a red flag, legitimate debt counseling companies advise you on money management, budget development, debt and educational material and occasionally workshops.
Essentially, it is none of their business regarding the details of your situation or requires you to be approved. They should discuss your financial situation and help you in developing a plan to eliminate the problems.
You can also check your local government agency or better business bureau, to ensure that they are indeed legitimate and no complaints have been filed against them.
The other things that will tell you rather or not a debt counseling service is legitimate include the following things. If they promise lowered payments, leave, only interest rates can be lowered not payments. If they ask you for your account numbers prior to giving you a quote, this is not necessary at all. If they group the quotes together instead of giving you a breakdown of how each creditor will be handled, this will leave you with no idea of how long it will take to pay off each account.
There are also questions you should always ask when choosing a debt counseling service. These questions should include charges for educational material, a disclosure in writing of fees that are charged, if they are properly licensed to do business in your area, what will happen if you cannot afford their fees, what type of services do they offer and if the counselors are certified and who certified them. This is your money and your financial well-being, do not leave any stone unturned.
There is a new bankruptcy law that makes filing bankruptcy harder for everyone. To file a chapter 7 will be nearly impossible if you are currently employed. They have formed a test that you will have to pay showing that your income is less than the median income for your area. Along with these new laws, it has become required to obtain debt-counseling services when filing bankruptcy.
Choose the debt counseling company very carefully and ensure they are legitimate. You do not want to cause more harm or damage to your credit, so choose reputable companies wisely.
Tags: Account Numbers, Better Business Bureau, Budget Development, Consumers, Counseling Service, Creditor, Debt Counseling, Educational Material, Financial Situation, Frauds, Interest Rates, Legitimate Debt, Local Government Agency, Management Budget, Money Management, Red Flag, Reputation, Upfront Fees, Voluntary Contributions, World Today
The most important first step you should take is to admit that you have a financial problem. As soon as you do that, you have taken a very big leap towards positive debt counseling and will soon recover from your debt problems. As they always say, the biggest obstacle to debt recovery or debt consolidation is denial. As long as you refuse to face up to your debts and financial problems, you’ll remain stuck in your predicament.
Debt counseling is a kind of service that you can make use of in order to understand your future financial plans and to plan ahead with adjusting your lifestyle and spending in order to recover from your financial crisis. Debt counseling is often advertised as non-profit, but let me tell you something, they are not always non-profit. But if the debt counseling service can help you leap over this financial problem, what’s paying a little bit of money to get professional advice, right?
Some people refuse to visit a debt counseling company because they fear that it will affect their credit rating, or make it even worse. The good news is that credit counseling companies rarely report your visits and reveal your personal financial information to the credit bureau. However, even if they do report your counseling service to the credit bureau, which is better – continue to sink into your financial debts or get professional debt counseling services so that you can avoid bankruptcy?
If you want to work on debt consolidation and restoring your financial health, we recommend using a debt counseling service because these are people who are trained to work at the numbers and provide you with alternatives. It’s far better than not using debt counseling and doing it yourself blindly – especially if you’re not sure how all this debt counseling and debt consolidation things work. Let the debt counseling people handle all the nitty gritty details for you. All you need to do is to ensure that you have a budget and use every single ounce of your willpower to resist overspending.
In most cases, there is no such thing as a better debt counseling agent and the worse debt counseling agent. They are, essentially, the same. The cost of using a debt counseling agent may, however, be different. However, the debt counseling agent will take about 6 months to work out your proposal and getting it accepted by all the creditors (depending on how many creditors you have and how much money you owe them). But the work of a debt counseling agent is to help the creditors see that this is the best that you can afford. If the creditors refuse the proposals, they may see NOTHING at all.
If you’re wondering if you can actually do this yourself, the answer is ‘yes’. But if you asked me, I would say that all this legwork is better left to the debt counseling professionals. As it is, budget watching and paying is already a big enough job.
Dakota Caudilla, journalist, and website builder Dakota Caudilla lives in Texas. He is the owner and co-editor of http://www.finance-source.net on which you will find a longer, more detailed version of this article.
Tags: Counseling Service, Credit Bureau, Credit Counseling, Credit Rating, Crisis Counseling, Debt Consolidation, Debt Counseling Services, Debt Problems, Debt Recovery, Denial, Financial Counseling, Financial Crisis, Financial Debts, Financial Health, Financial Information, Leap, Nitty Gritty Details, Obstacle, Predicament, Professional Advice
