Debt settlement companies exist to help people clear debt, they will negotiate with your creditors to achieve much reduced settlement figures that can save you up to 50% of your debt, except that it is never really 50% as you will find out later on.
Debt settlement companies always use the same pattern or steps during the settlement process as they are pretty much standard throughout the industry, below is an example of how the settlement process works to eliminate credit card debt fast
A debtor has a debt of $50,000 over four credit cards and is struggling to make even the minimum payments each month. A credit counseling service has already attempted negotiating with the creditors but the reduced payments were still too high for the debtor to pay.
Bankruptcy is an option, but the debtor does not wish to go down this route as it will destroy his/her credit rating for at least the next ten years, nor does the debtor want to go to court, which would be inevitable if this path was chosen.
Another option, and the one the debtor opts for, is to work with a credit card debt settlement company who advises that the following four steps are taking in order to get rid of the $50,000 credit card debt:
Collection calls are passed on: Once payments begin to get behind the credit card companies will start to call the debtor with requests for payments these are effectively passed on to and handled by a representative from the debt settlement company.
Negotiation begins: As money is continually being paid into the trust account, the debt settlement company representative will begin negotiations with the creditors to help you to eliminate credit card debt fast.
Settlements of between 40-60% are acquired: Part of the negotiation process is getting the credit card companies to accept the fact that the debtor cannot afford to pay the individual debts in full and as a result they agree to accept a much reduced amount, often between 40% to 60% of the outstanding debt.
These settlements do not happen all at once, but as they do the debtor is able to pay them off using the money deposited in the trust account. It is important however, that any extra funds the debtor finds are deposited into the trust account also. It is completely possible that this debt could be completely cleared in as little as two years, depending on how successful the negotiations have been.
It is irrespective whether it is a credit card debt settlement program or one that includes other forms of debt the initial thing you should do is to stop paying your creditors and forward payments to your debt settlement company instead, without doing so you risk not having funds in place when an agreeable settlement is offered.
There are certain debts that you can be settled with these techniques and those that can't as they are excluded from settlement programs:
Debts that can be settled:
Unsecured Credit card debt
Medical Bills
Gas/store cards
Personal loans
And basically anything credit that is unsecured
Debts that can't be settled:
Tax debts
Alimony,
Child support,
Mortgages,
Student Loans that are covered by federal insurance
The amount you will actually save through the settlement company's efforts equates to between 40-50% of the balance that is forgiven by the creditors.
The whole process can take as little as 2 years but could extend to 4 years, but this is mainly dictated by the size of the debt being settled.
once both sides have agreed upon a settlement and the debt has been paid off, as per the agreement, most creditors will not pursue you for the remaining balance. However, in certain states creditors still retain the right to sue under certain conditions. It is prudent to find out whether suing after settlement is illegal or not in your state. If you want to eliminate credit card debt fast this is the best method. Click here to get help now and eliminate your debts.
Here is the #1 resource for eliminating unsecured debt just click here to get out of debt now
How to resolve my credit card debt issue? I am in a collection status, how can I deal with that?
An unexpected payment of $2,499.06 was posted to my Citi account on May 27th, 2005. The payment posted in error was corrected on the statement of 12/10/2005. . I was unaware of this matter until I was notified by Citi reporting my default on payment. At that time, I was in a debt consolidation program (American Debt Consolidation Inc.) which they consolidate my credit card debt and make automatic payments to my creditors. The debt consolidating program stopped making payment to Citi because they found that my balance was already paid in full since May 2005. That causes extra late fee and over-credit limit fee were billed to my account after my balance was adjusted on 12/10/2005. As of May 2005, my balance was $2,023.76 according to the statement of 06/06/2005.During that period, I was trying to contact my creditor to discuss the matter. I have already explained the issue to several representatives of my creditor. Unfortunately, no further progress was made till now.
I was trying to work with my debt consolidation program to resolve this issue. But it seems they are not very being active on this matter. I started to lose interested to working with them since it is very time consuming (they said it takes at least 3 month to send out the proposal and let the creditor to review it before making decisions). So I rather directly negotiated with my creditor instead. But I feel that it is useless to talk to customer reps because they are not authorized to lower my interest rate and elimate my over credit limit fee, pulse it hard to put the manger or related department head on the line. On the collection agency side, they are trying to help me with paying only 80% of the total debt. But I still don't think it is fair to me because it is my creditor's fault on the mis-posted payment at the beginning. My debt raises up to around $3000 with interest rate of 29% from May 2005 till now. My beginning banlance was around $2000.
Answer
Cant the American Debt Consolidation business help you with this since you were enrolled with them at the time and this creditor was on your list?
Plus, the credit card company should of informed the Debt Consolidation people of this mistake. They should of informed you that the debt was paid off since they considered it paid in full and quit paying on the debt on your behalf.
If not call the Consumer Protection Agency in your area, they will help you and will be a third party witness on your behalf. They are like mediators when there are desputes.
Just some suggestions
Good Luck
Dee
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Credit Card Debt Collection Training - the Basics
You obviously disagree that the government should treat all famers equally based on their race, which is what that settlement was about.