Debt Consolidation Organizations

swami108,
I too signed up with Federated and ???????YES??????? it went too fast. I got a call today from someone and I had to let them know that I have some misgivings about the process. First, when the "sales person" asked me to send my debts I sent everything I owed and then when we talked to setup the payment plan she ran through the numbers and the accounts that they would handle. At that time she made no mention of small balances or that they did not work with certain things such as child support. I was not really sure what they would be paying. So, today when I received a call for my "welcome" to the program (after ACH withdrawal for the setup fee and the first payment), when I wanted to get some clarification this person begin to get angry and handle me like I was ill informed or something. I asked her to send me details of what they would pay with the money I sent and a timeline for when my creditors would be contacted and paid.
What I got was an email just stating the account that they were to pay with no further explanation as I requested, on the phone she made some comment about "I would not sign something I did not understand", but nowhere in the agreement did it explain the information I was asking.

So... here I am now having paid for service wondering did I make another big mistake, before signing I did a BBB check and they were rated A-, which is not that bad, but the customer service so far leaves me thinking :(
David

This is a post from the forum "community success stories"

(Admins, if this is in the wrong spot, I apologize! I wasn't sure if this is an OK place for success using companies, or only personal efforts.)

This board was where I started my research into debt options (I made a few guest posts as Cruithne), so I thought that now that I am debt-free I would come back and return the favor of sharing my experiences. If this is as much a review as a story, that is because I remember how starved for information I was when I was trying to research the different settlement companies. If you have any questions that my rather verbose post doesn't cover, I'll be happy to answer here or in PM.

Short Version:


Cards settled: BofA (20%), the dreaded Citibank (50%), and State Farm Bank aka Chase (55%), all of which were current before I started
Time it took: ~6 months (all pre-chargeoff)

Total debt at start of program: ~35.3k
Total debt right before charge off (because of yucky fees): ~38.5k
Total settlement amounts: ~12.2k (about 30%)
Total amount saved including fees paid: ~20-23k (depending on whether you count the interest and fees)

Company I used: debtxpert.com aka "sifxpert"
Fee structure: 20% of what you are saved for each settlement, with a $500 retainer fee at the start
My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

Based on my experiences, I can recommend without reservations the settlement company I used. If I had to do it all over again and if he were no longer in business, I wouldn't even try settlement. Tooo many things that can go wrong. The fee structure of other companies is scary in comparison, and no one has impressed me with their skill and character as much as James Lombardo of debtxpert.com has.


Long Version

A year ago (fall 2006), I was a day late paying my BofA bill because of...well, I don't remember. Probably just busy or trying to juggle the in and out-flow of money down to the day like we often have to. Or maybe I was just too close to my limit. They've given me a hard time about that too. In any case, they took my apr up to the ungodly 30%+, making it impossible for me to pay my minimum balances. And nothing I could do would talk them down.

So I found myself here, and I learned about settlement. I had never been more than a day late in any payment, so as I learned more of the "dark side" of settlement (that I would have to stop paying bills, or no one would settle), I was pretty worried. I was originally talking to the company that was popular here at the time (I don't know if they still are), but their payment plan really worried me. Because of the up-front fees and because of my low income, it would take years to settle my debts through their setup.

At first I thought that was the only option, so I was this close to signing up, but then through my various googlings to find other opinions about them, I learned about the company now known as debtxpert.com (aka sifxpert aka James).

I was intrigued by the idea of working with someone who participated in the community he served (a different one, not this one), so after talking with James on the phone and sending countless emails (I'd gotten pretty jaded and suspicious of the whole debt correction industry by this time), my husband and I decided to enter his program. I was won over by how smart the guy was, and how very not-pushy he was. I knew that settlement was possible, but only if the person doing the negotiation was very clever and knowledgeable. I felt he was.

We stopped paying our bills in...March 2007 I think it was? And by September we were debt-free.

I can't say it was the easiest thing I've done. While he did what he could to stop phone calls, it wasn't foolproof. It helped that I had a cell phone as my main phone that could be set to only accept #s in my address book. And of course nothing can help the guilt if you are someone who has always paid your bills.

But it worked. All three of our cards were settled before charge-off. And I can now gladly give my wholehearted recommendation that James and his team at debtxpert.com can do the job.

The Good:

1) The fee structure ($500 retainer, then 20% of what he saves you from each settlement) is *sane*. It's what everyone should be doing. It meant we actually had the money to settle, since we hadn't paid most of our savings into fees to the settlement company.

2) He believes in settling before charge-off. Avoiding charge-off was very important to us, so we needed to know that the negotiator would fight for that.

3) He is not only smart and good at what he does, but he respects and cares about his clients. Yes, it is a business (and possibly a very lucrative one, given how many of these companies are out there), but I honestly think the guy gets a high from helping people.

The Bad:

Some things could have been improved on. In a perfect world the calls would have stopped completely. I don't know if it is possible or not these days.

And as others have mentioned, he can be hard to get ahold of. It is better than it was earlier this year and in the last 2-3 months he's always replied to emails within 24 hours. Still, when you are doing something like settlement you really want to be able to reach your negotiator quickly. With so many fraudulent and irresponsible companies out there, not being able to reach them by phone relatively quickly can make you start to imagine all sorts of terriying things.

Fortunately this doesn't appear to have hurt anyone yet besides generating some worry. I've read folks being frustrated that it took them a little too long to reach him, but I've never read anyone complain about settlement results. If he'd messed up or screwed someone over with a bad negotiation, we'd hear about it here or on one of the other debt settlement online communities.

So despite the above negatives, if I had to do it all over again, I'd still sign on with him.

P.S. Being debt-free and paying everthing with cash...is awesome. OMG. I randomly break out into a sh*t-eating grin at the oddest moments.

Question to guest..so basically you did a settlement for your debts?? You didn't consolidate?? this may be a stupid question..but how did you find the money to settle all at one time?? Also, how did this affect your credit rating since you stopped paying bills??