Has anyone had a great

someone will shortly be along with advice on debt consolidation. There are many here who have done that successfully. Don;t worry - there is hope! This is the best place for advice & help

I am in a debt settlement program, not consolidation. Can you share experiences with me, hopefully positive ones? We are about $22,000 in debt and are going into our second month of late payments. We have never been late on anything so this makes me really uneasy...HELP!!

Anybody at all out there that can comment???

I believe that with a debt settlement company you make the payments and they put it into an account until you have enough money to offer a company a settlement.
Was there a reason why you chose that route instead of a consoladation company? Because if you were not late and just wanted to combine your payments and make them a little smaller that would have been the way I would have gone.

I know I almost signed up my dad with a settlement company and found out that the company was a scam. He would have lost everything and would have gotten sued. So be very careful with those companies. ANd make sure you really understand how they work.


Please let us know how things work out with you and your experience with that company.

Do you remenber the name of the company you almost used? The difference is that with consolidation, you pay the same principal amount with usually a lower interest rate and it is paid to the company in one lump sum each month. It usually takes forever to pay this off but the debt settlement program allows you to pay only a portion of the principal in one lump sum so you can pay your creditors off one at a time as long as you faithfully make deposits into the trust fund. That is how I understand it.

Yep that sounds right. I'm sorry I really can't remember what the name was. I believe it was out of Cali. though. And they made me fax them everything, they would not accept ANYTHING by USPS. One thing you can do is check with the BBB and see how they are reported. I didn't know at the time you could do that. I was just trying to help my dad and almost screwed that up lol.

I am in a debt management plan with a company called Delray credit counseling and I am very happy so far. I have about $4500.00 in credit card debt ( I know that's not a lot, but it was for me!) and I pay them 174.00 a month. They have had my interest rates lowered almost half of what they were. I am working on trying to pay them two payments a month so I can pay everything off faster, but I haven't quite gotten there yet. I had so many PDL's that I am in the process of paying off that all of my money has gone towards them. I am almost done, so after that I should be able to send Delray two payments a month! I am happy so far. The collection calls have stopped and all of my credit card companies accepted the proposals.