a recent article from “Consumer Reports” is of the same taste as many other articles regarding debt settlement, its a “scam.”  It is the usual story, somebody signed up with a settlement company, then quits after feeling like they are not receiving results and finds a “trusted” debt counselor who helps them pay back their creditors for little fee and blah blah.  First of all, I agree that the industry is riddled with corruption and I do not like typical debt settlement companies in the least.  They are too expensive (as the article says) and often do not achieve the claimed results.  In this article though, the lady dropped out after 5 months when the company likely said it would take at least a year or more to achieve anything so that means nothing to me as far as she got “scammed.”  As for fees and such, if they were going to save her thousands more than they charged and she’d have to do nothing, how is that a “scam”?  Instead she paid a non-profit credit counselor to decrease her interest rate and such, this after saying “you can do what settlement companies do on your own”, same goes for credit counselors!!

Here is where we come in… we are not a settlement company nor a credit counceling agency (as per their traditional definitions).  We are a consultancy that helps individuals lower their principal balance on debts like settlement companies attempt to do while giving you the tools and resources to do these things on your own if you so choose.  This, however, is not our primary goal (although may be yours as a client).  Our goal is to give you control and protection over your financial situation and assets.  We consult you on providing the means by which you may save substantially on debts, protect assets and gain the time necessary to “dig yourself out” of the troubling situation that has occured.  Many have had us work with them as “risk prevention” before issues truly arise.

I agree with the article in the sense you can do these things yourself.  Of course you can! You can also represent yourself in a court of law but people seem to hire attorneys a lot.  No one is disputing that, just as you can do what “councelors” do, without paying them!  The real question is, do you want to?  We have created a “hybrid” solution with our consulting programs and tools to simplify the task while allowing you to “do it yourself” to the degree you choose, allowing us to charge MUCH LESS than any other debt solution out there.  On top of that, we see better results!!

In the end, I agree with the article in that debt settlement companies are scams in most cases and I would search for solutions that allow more control (not necessarily credit counceling either as this actually has a lower success rate than settlement! They fail to mention that…).  The article is the same boring flavor as many written before and seems more like a counceling ad than decent legitimate information…