Debt Help
Date: Sun, 12/02/2007 - 09:50
What you're describing isn't debt counseling. It's a debt conso
What you're describing isn't debt counseling. It's a debt consolidation loan. A counseling service contacts each of your lenders and renegotiates the terms of each contract (interest rates, length of term, etc.). (Just to avoid confusion, there are also debt settlement companies that try to negotiated discounted payoffs for each debt, but you have to be saving up the money while they do it.) Neither kind of company can guarantee success since they aren't in control of the debt. If you talk to one that does make a guarantee like that - hang up the phone. They're lying just to get your fees.
A debt consolidation loan is a lot like a balance transfer on a credit card. Depending on your credit you can get them from a regular bank. (MBNA used to give them out like candy before Bank of America took them over.) The new loan pays off the old one and the terms of the new loan are whatever you agreed to. The only ones I know for sure from experience have fixed rates are with my credit union. But I did get one from MBNA (now BOA) years ago that never budged even though it technically had a variable rate.
