the credit exchange

Hi Juscheckin
It is a call from "The Credit Exchange" which is a debt consolidation company. There are several complaint against them that they do not properly negotiate with the creditors and push you to more debt.

Hi Juscheckin! I wanted to correct SC's misinformed comment. The Credit Exchange is NOT a debt consolidation company, we are a REFERRAL company that refers qualified candidates to a law firm for their dbet restructuring needs. Also, it is impossible for my company to "push people further into debt" unless we got ahold of your credit cards and went on a shopping spree, which of course we wouldn't do. Their is the risk of increased interest rates and penalties imposed by YOUR CREDITORS, not The Credit Exchange, if you miss payments to them as a result of the process of settling your debt, if you chose debt settlement as an option for debt resolution, which I'm opposed to IF you can afford the minimum payment required in a Credit Counseling program. There is a lot to know about debt management strategies that we'd love to share with you, so give us a call at and one of my Certified Credit Counselors will take all the time you need to explain all the nuances.

I have made the mistake of soliciting The Credit Exchange. They got information from me, think they have a real contract and I expect they are going to try to fraud me. I tried several times to call them to make sure after reading the literature that I am cancelling and will not do business with them, but only get an operator that shunts me off to a so-called agent that is just a message service. After several attempts to get a real person leaving messages to both the agent and her so called supervisor, I have not received a return call. Guess what you Credit Exchange idiots, I have everything documented and recorded. I have also been working with your referree The Johnson Law Group. I wonder if they are going to want anything to do with you after I am finished with you. Your asses are mine! Have a nice day.

Really Steve? You refer people to a law firm? Oh....you meant like the Allegro Law firm. Actually you mean alleged law firms, then right?

You are so pathetic to get on here and continue to lie to people. Haven't you done well enough from the money you have already screwed enough people out of? Do you even have a little dignity left?

Steve, here's how you push people further into debt.

You talk them into giving you money that could have gone toward actually paying their debt, and claim it'll be used to pay their debt just as soon as they have enough to do a settlement plan. What you actually do, of course, is sometimes try to negotiate with creditors, which rarely works, but mostly, you and your sales reps just pocket the money.

Meanwhile, people stop paying their debts because they're depending on you to take care of it for them, so interest, penalties, overlimit fees, etc. quickly pile up. Then come the collection calls and lawsuits, with court costs and attorney fees to pay when people lose. THAT's how you get people in more debt, Steve. Like you didn't know.

I used to ask you what you did with the $7,500,000 you got from Hess Kennedy. Now I'm asking what did you do with the $13,349,859 you got from Hess Kennedy.

ps. I still remember, even if you don't, your threatening me with a RICO suit last year. Again, I suggest you refrain. But if you insist, you'll find how expensive it is to file frivolous lawsuits against me or my clients.

Anybody else taken a look at the reviews on Amazon of The main scam master at The Credit Exchange Steve Vanderhoof's book?

It is really pathetic as you can pick them out as employees of the Credit Exchange. One review was from Nick Williamson the scumbag who signed me up to get screwed. There is even a review by the Edward Cherry character I have heard mentioned on here.

Of course all these reviews are about how super great the book is. My review wasn't so great though. I even got bashed by another reviewer known as queenb.

I invite anyone scammed by The Credit Exchange to go to Amazon and search for Steve Vanderhoof and pull up his book review. Be sure and give him an honest review of him and his book.

and i went thru the process to set up a plan and now im Just reading these reviews and i'm scared out of my life. im already in a bind with money and if this doesn't work my life is going to get tougher. how do i go about canceling so they don't take my hard earned money that i cannot spare for something possibly fraudulent??

I was referred to Hess Kennedy by the Credit Exchange. Below is a summary that apparently no one will comment on.

I just received a letter from Chase Bank forgiving yet another debt I placed with the Hess Kennedy firm. My HSBC, Capital One Accounts and now my Chase accounts are all settled with no derogatory information on my credit report.

My claim with the receiver has now been denied. This is fine I guess, I only paid $3500 and have eliminated over $23,000 in debt with no derogs on my credit report. (I have a 705 Score now)

I have been following this case. They had over 90,000 clients with a little over 250 BBB complaints. That's .00277 complaints.

The LBF website just reported (July Receiver Report) that the Debt Management business of Hess Kennedy is still operating and generating over $3,800,000 in "receipts".

LBF paid out over $280,000 in "professional" and "legal" fees to themselves from the $3,800,000 worth of receipts and stated that the "Receivership Entities" will continue to receive "commissions from the Debt Management Business".

My question is to anyone out there, if the business was a scam, how did it settle all my debt and how can it still earn commissions?

I think Laura Hess and her cronies should have hired better lawyers. From the look of it, they had their business jacked.

Funny how quiet it gets on here when the Truth is spoken . . all you haters should be ashamed of yourselves . . .wake up morons it is the banks that are the enemy not one another . . .

Assuming you're not Steve Vanderhoof trying to recruit more fools just before you get put out of business, here's how you got lucky.

Exactly as I said, Credit Exchange/Hess Kennedy kept your money and didn't pay your creditors. Or better yet, HK sent you a copy of the check they wrote to Capital One, HSBC, Chase Bank, etc. without telling you that HK or one of its controlled businesses just took out a doing-business-as name of Capital One, HSBC, Chase Bank, etc. and opened bank accounts in those names, so HK was writing checks to itself and making it look like your creditors were being paid. The credit card companies were not amused, so that's why they sued HK and other associated scammers, including The Credit Exchange.

LBF, the receiver, managed to find $27 million here and there, and some of the credit card companies agreed to settle their suits for a few million. Very kindly, they also agreed to forgive all HK-related accounts and delete all tradelines. They didn't have to do that, and I've never heard of it before or since. This is called blind luck. Don't count on it.

No amount of lawyering could have saved Laura Hess or HK because they got themselves in too much trouble. As you know. And no company that referred people to HK can be any good. As you know.

The Credit Exchange is doomed. Greed is a sin, and The Credit Exchange is about to be paid the wages of sin. Everybody who gave them money needs to demand a refund immediately, and if you don't get every penny back, find a lawyer in your area who will take it contingent and sue them.

I am certainly not Steve. I agree with what you said about the "sin" part. But I just read the Report of the Receiver July 2008 - July 2009.

From the look of it the companies books and records were in shambles but all the money needed to settle the accounts were there.

I think the FTC is going to stop all debt settlement with the new rule that will prohibit up-front fees.

I don't think I gave the credit exchange any money. All my fees were deducted by Laura and her cronies. . .

I also was scammed by credit exchange. A woman by the name of Regina Wright. I thought it was a scam so I stopped payment on any withdrawals from my checking account. sHE DID GET aLLEGRO lAW FIRM A TOTAL OF $635.00 from me though. They work together to scam people into thinking they will help them get out of debt. I hope they are brought to justice. Also so we all get our money back. The one uo above will know what they are doing believe me. I am reporting them to the Better Business Bureau.

Get to the Alabama Attorney General's site. They have contact information for Allegro Law's receiver so you can put in a claim for your money.

Complain to the California AG, or wherever The Credit Exchange is these days. I used to assume that very bad debt elimination scams always had lots of complaints pending, but I know different now! Sometimes nobody complains, because they figure everybody else already did, so don't let that happen.

Please explain on how this company is a scam I signed up last month and paid my first payment and they have recently taken my second payment and it went to my creditors and now i have a lower payment and i have better interest rates and now i know when i will be out of debt. before i didnt know if i was ever going to be out of debt with my high rates. so i think that they are helping me but everyone is saying they are a scam and i dont want to get ripped off. PLEASE HELP ME!!!

p.s.
they did inform me that my first payment would not go to my creditors and i was fine with that because they were able to save me so much money in the long run.

p.s.s
help me understand what they are really doing because so far eveything is exactly how they said it was going to be. and my money did go to the creditors. I DONT WANT TO GET RIPPED OFF

Hi Anonymous, it's nice to know that things have worked between you and The Credit Exchange just the way they should. However, I'd suggest that you do a bit of research by yourself since many of the members don't seem to have great experience with them. Check them out on BBB.

Quote:

Well, I collect debts from collection agencies and debt elimination scams that break the law, so ya, that counts as debt collection.

Collection agencies and junk debt buyers LOVE the "debt settlement" and "debt elimination" because the first thing those scams tell people to do is--stop paying their debts. If people pay their debts in full and on time, there's never any need for collection agencies or junk debt buyers. In fact, one of the bigger "debt invalidation" scams will tell you flat out, if you read far enough in their materials, that's what they want you to do; stop paying your debts and get the CAs and JDBs to abuse you repeatedly and rack up FDCPA damages that will soon outweigh your debts. (actually they won't, except for the smallest accounts, but what do the scammers care, they already got thousands of dollars from you, and that's all they live for)

Words in big type above an article are what we call a "headline" and may not be an accurate summary of the small-type words on the rest of the page, called the "body" of the article. If you read the body of the articles about the Lewis B. Freeman receivership, you will immediately note that what he (not the entire the rest of his firm) did wrong was allegedly (and IRS is by no means always right, but they usually are) sell illegal tax shelters, and owed IRS $4.8 million. That's why he got raided. As to "shut down," that will probably come true before long. But he is NOT repeat NOT accused of stealing money from trust accounts, as far as I know.

And the actual receiver for Hess Kennedy is Daniel J. Stermer, NOT repeat NOT Lewis B. Freeman. hesskennedyreceiver_com is now Stermer's site. Neither Freeman nor Stermer nor anybody has stolen any money from the HK funds. In fact, Stermer just filed a proposed distribution plan to give $13.5 million ($13,500,000 or $1.35 x 10^7) back to people and businesses who deserve it. That's a lot more good faith and fair dealing than HK ever showed. Plus much more, if the suit against THE CREDIT EXCHANGE (what this thread is supposed to be about) works out, which I think it sure will.