It can be difficult to figure out exactly what services a debt management actually provides, especially with the bombardment of advertisements out there, promising one easy payment and an improved credit report. A debt management program can work to your advantage in a variety of ways; you just need to ensure you know what you are getting yourself into before signing on the dotted line.

Many debt management programs will start by phoning your creditors and trying to negotiate a deal with them. Their goal is to get them to settle for smaller amounts or at least to lower your interest rate or reduce fees. Remember that any amount that is deducted from a debt owed is reported on your taxes as income: for example, if your credit card company forgives $5000 of a loan, that 5K is reported to the IRS as income and you will need to pay taxes on it.

Some debt management companies will attempt to get creditors to settle by withholding your payments to them, in the hope that the creditor will then be willing to settle for less. Consumers using these services may be unpleasantly surprised to find that even though they are sending off the correct amount each month; their balances are not going down. Even more frustratingly so, their creditors continue to call. This method can also be detrimental to a person’s credit score, as a 60 days past due note would definitely appear on the credit report.

Many debt management and credit counseling services do not do this, instead focusing on slowly paying off your debt and trying to get your creditors to work with them to lower interest rates. They will even arrange a settlement for a lump sum payment if you have the money.

Once you are signed up with a debt consolidation company there are rules that you will have to abide by. You might not be able to open any new credit accounts or pre-pay your bills. Check with your credit counselor before you sign to ensure you understand what is happening with your money and when you will be finished the program. Once you have signed up, your debt consolidation company will phone your creditors with offers stating how much you will pay each month and will determine how long you will have to pay. If all of your creditors agree on this, you will simply have to send the amount due each month to your debt consolidation company, occasionally checking your credit report to ensure everything is going well.

Unfortunately some of your creditors will refuse to work with a credit counseling or debt consolidation company, and may require you to pay them separately. Your credit counselor will help you to deal with this type of creditor. They will perhaps send them a better offer or you might have to make a certain amount of on-time payments to this creditor before they will agree to go on the program. A debt management program makes certain all of your creditors are paid on time. You send them one amount each month, and they will send out the payments to each of your creditors in the amount the creditor has agreed to.

By: John Thackeray

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Kansieo.com

The first thing to understand is that credit counseling and debt consolidation is not the same thing. Credit counseling involves a debt counselor working with you to assist you in making a budget so that you can pay off your debt, whereas debt consolidation involves the payment of a bulk amount of money each month allowing the company to issue payments to your creditors. You have to be careful that the company you choose is not attempting to negotiate a settlement by holding onto your payments for an unreasonable amount of time in order to coerce your creditor into settling for pennies on the dollar. Though debt consolidation may assist you in getting your finances under control, a settlement will hurt your credit, so you need to avoid that at all costs.

Do not let a debt consolidation company convince you that they can negotiate a lower payment plan than other companies because this just isn’t possible. The creditors have set programs for those who enter into debt consolidation programs, and only under extenuating circumstances are those programs open to negotiation. Don’t be fooled by the claims that you will save over half on your payments because except for payments that might be past due and showing as a minimum payment due, that just isn’t going to happen.

Another thing to be wary of is that companies cannot negotiate interest rates that are lower than that of the rate that is charged to the customers with the highest credit rating. If you know that your friend has excellent credit and is paying 9.5% interest on his new car loan, be wary if you are quoted a rate more than 2% under that and you have questionable credit. It doesn’t make good business sense for a company to give a lower interest rate to someone who has only fair or poor credit than what is given to someone with excellent or good credit. It’s a ploy to get you in, and once there, your final contract is going to demand a much higher rate than you were quoted. By then, it’s too late for you to back out unless you are conscientious enough to read everything you sign, something many people don’t do.

Debt consolidation companies can be quite helpful to people who have tried and failed to get out of debt either because they don’t know how or they are unable to stick to a budget. They may be quite serious about getting out of debt, but once the money is in their hands, they just forget everything they had promised to do. For them, debt consolidation or even a plan that involves paying creditors before the paycheck is ever received, is the best solution. You must choose the plan that is best for you, but you must also keep the facts in mind as well. Do plenty of research before making a decision, and be sure to read every piece of paper that is passed your way.

By: Darnell Scott

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