Any Thoughts on CCCS good or bad?

I used CCCS in 2007 to try to get my $15,000 in cc debt paid off....they set me up with $425 monthly payments - they take care of all of it and give you a schedule of when you will have all creditors paid off. For me it didn't work out and I had to drop out after a few months because I had trouble meeting the monthly $425. CCCS counselor will sit down with you and figure out a budget. They will pay most of your unsecured debts (mainly credit cards) for you. You won't have to deal with those creditors anymore as long as you remain in the program. you just tell them you are with CCCS now and then the creditors call CCCS. I think it was going to take about 45 months to pay off the $15,000 @ $425 per month. that was a year ago and now I am ready to try CCCS again after my PDLs are paid :) give them a call if you really want to get out of debt - at least they are not trying to scam anyone!

Guest, you said that maybe they can get better settlement amount. However, I wanted to clarify that CCCs do not do debt settlement; they do debt management. You will repay all of your creditors through their program, but they might be able to get your interest rates reduced so that you can pay your debts off sooner.

If CCCS don't do debt settlement, then shouldn't I negotiate with the debt collector myself? Wont the debt collector give me a monthly amount to pay off? I am a little confused. What it sounds like to me is, that with CCCS I would be paying of the entire amount in payments, whereas with the debt collector they might agree on a lower settlement amount like 50 cents on the dollar?

Yes, basically that is the difference. You can read more about debt management here:

http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/debt-management.html

You can read more about debt settlement here:

http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/debt-settlement.html

It depends on what your goals are, what your financial situation is, what your credit score is and whether you want to keep it good, etc.

You can do debt management (CCCS) at any time if you have the funds to cover your bills. You would need to be several months behind in your payments before your creditors might agree to a settlement amount, and even then it depends on the creditor. You can pay a company to do the settlement for you or you can do it yourself. There are a lot of shady settlement companies out there, so do your homework and be very careful if you don't feel that you can handle it yourself. If you want to do it yourself, there are lots of people here who can help!