Does anyone have any experience with or know about "debt consolidation services" such as "Premier Financial"
Does anyone have any experience with or know about "debt consolidation services"
such as "Premier Financial", who, for a fee, consolidate all unsecured bills
into a single monthly payment by eliminating interest charges from creditors
and disbursing funds to each creditor from your single payment??
Are these services legitimate or some kind of scam. If they are legit, what
are the catches? Any insight would be appreciated.
They are not always capable of eliminating interest charges.
Each creditor has to agree. F'rinstance, a friend was told
interest charges would be eliminated by all creditors, but
in reality, only 2 of her credit card lenders agreed to
the reduction. The others insisted on full payment.
Also, several people I know (this friend included)
experienced a problem w/ the finance company paying
late, so that they still continued to receive harassing
calls from various lenders.
: Are these services legitimate or some kind of scam. If they are legit, what
: are the catches? Any insight would be appreciated.
They're legal but whether they're legitimate is a whole 'nother question.
In general, you would do better to find a way to negotiate
w/ your creditors yourself. Why pay someone a fee to make a
phone call & ask if you can have interest charges dropped while
you're experiencing a temporary problem? You can do that just
as well on your own for free. If you call customer service &
get an agreement, always send in a follow-up letter in writing
to confirm your agreement.
How much do you owe, I'm wondering? It's best if you can pay
off the minimums w/out letting anyone know you're in pretty deep,
because later on, you will have a wonderful credit record
& access to a great deal of credit in an emergency. I owed
almost $35K a bit over 3 yrs ago, & I've gotten it down to
about $8K now. I now have (rough guestimate) around
$100K of credit should I need it for some unexpected crisis.