Palges40, To sum up, they false advertise. I had enrolled two accounts in their program last year and I pulled both of them out (one after three months, and the other back in Feb). They tell you that they have good relationships with your creditors but many creditors do not even work with them. BOA for example. They also advise you to let the accounts age (get charged off and go to collections) as that will give them more leverage to negotiate better settlements on your behalf and that your scores will drop but they will increase because after you've settled those accounts your debt ratio will improve. What they don't tell you is that settling an account for less than what is owed has little to no impact on your score when these accounts have been settled and reported as settled for less on your CRs. I became so frustrated with them, they told me to set aside 1200 for the creditor but each time they contacted the creditor, the creditor would ask for no less than 2600 which was even more than I had owed originally (interest and late fees were added). I sent them an email accusing them of false advertising, requested to close the account and also a full or partial refund as they had not delivered on their promise, and they wrote me back asking me to call them so they could speak to me, I ended up getting 1/3 of the money i paid to them in service fees back. I went ahead and paid off the second creditor and I'm paying off the other one monthly. It was a CC with a high APR that got out of control, I contacted the OC and they decided to lower my APR to 5% fixed for 60 months to allow me to pay off the balance on the card. You can google consumer credit counselling services, they are a non-profit and I heard they have a good reputation and success rate (wish I had known about them last year before i dealt with Credit Solutions). You can try them if you are in a very bad situation debtwise, if not I would just recommend that you contact the creditors you owe and see if you can work out a payment plan for something that fits your budget. Some of them are willing to do that. BOA for example and I've read that some aren't, they'd rather sell your debt to a CA or come after you in court.
