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I just returned from Philadelphia and it is time to get back to work up in here. The worst aren’t credit counselors at all, writes Liz Pulliam Weston for MSN.com’s personal finance column. She says that they typically bill themselves as experts in “debt settlement,” they pledge to make it possible for you to get rid of your debts for pennies on the dollar — after you pay an upfront fee that can run $3,000 or even more.
Weston says that by the time she hears about these outfits, they’ve already fled with people’s cash, “disconnected their phones and set up shop somewhere new with a different name.”
Who Can Benefit By Credit Counseling?
Judging by how these sorts of “services” have proliferated, there is an abundance of consumers in financial distress. Consumer debt has been run up to astronomical levels, and bankruptcies are high despite so called “reforms” that were enacted during the Bush administration to make them more difficult for consumers.
Weston reports that it isn’t easy to find out just how many people have signed up for debt repayment plans through credit-counseling services. If you need a good philadelphia credit counseling then I think that these guys can probaly help you. Obviously they are based in Philadelphia, pennsylvania. She cites Lydia Sermons-Ward, spokeswoman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, who says that of those in debt repayment plans, roughly half were expected to complete their plans. The other half were unsuccessful and some of those would end up in bankruptcy.
What Credit Counselors Do and How They Make Money
Liz Pulliam Weston says that usually counseling services negotiate lower payments with credit-card companies and other lenders, then make the payments using a check or electronic funds transfer sent to them by the consumer each month.