loneranger Posted March 22, 2004 Report Share Posted March 22, 2004 My cousin is in a hole financially and was pointed to this service by his coworkers. He's been contacted by collectors daily. I don't understand their reasoning or method. Do you guys? www.drsmdebtfree.com Disclaimer: my cousin got himself in this mess and have been asking me for advice as well as to loan him some $. I said no. A divorce and a lawsuit got him blindsided thus leading to his delinquent accounts. Disregarding the ethics aspect of his situation (yeah he should pay back his credit card debt), what is your opinion on this service? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve summers Posted March 22, 2004 Report Share Posted March 22, 2004 Have him contact his local Credit Counseling Organization. Most are not for profit and charge little if anything for their services. They will work with your cousin, help him with a budget, and get the creditors to back off, and even get them to lower their interest rates. He just has to realize that it takes awhile to dig the hole, and just as long to get out, any "quick fix" will have some long term ramifications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COZWV Posted March 23, 2004 Report Share Posted March 23, 2004 Go with the Local Credit Counselors. It's much better than late payments or bankruptcy. Your credit is so dang important! COZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costabilo Posted March 23, 2004 Report Share Posted March 23, 2004 I pay my credit cards off at the end of each month so don't speak from personal exsperience, but the exsperience of my brother and my sisiter... The debt services are only a temporary fix. If you cannot dig yourself out after the debt service has done their work, you are back to square one (if not worse) because your creditors don't have much of a grace period like normal (either you pay the reduced rate on time or it's a deal breaker for your creditors). Another caution is that the service takes your money and pays your bills for you, but it's not always such a smooth transition. You still are responsible for making sure the payments are made on time to the credit card company. No one is as careful as you can be with you accounts. If you are like my sisiter and can keep up with the plan you and the company come up with you SHOULD be on track in a few years versus like 50 years with min credit card payments. (This is because you are negotiating a lower interest rate and sometimes lower payoffs with the banks). If you are like my brother who did it he could not keep up with his accounts through the transition, the company took his money and did not catch the bad accounts up, and evetually kicked him out of their program. For my brother with all the extra fees on his accounts, money being put in the wrong places by the service, and to top that off a job loss- the mismangement forced him into bankruptcy. Basically, you can work it to your advantage, but it is a risk and shoould be carefully managed. Be prepared to catch everything up, create a plan with them that can be kept up with, and then watch all accounts and make sure the payment always gets there and that all are current only then it is a good thing for people. As always if you want something done right you have to do it yourself! Hope this helps your cousin out! -Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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