Alabama Debt — Should I Hire A Debt Settlement Company To Help Me?

Alabama Debt — Should I Hire A Debt Settlement Company To Help Me?

My experience has been that most Alabama consumers who hire a debt settlement company end up either scammed out of their money and/or sued by their creditors.

So what is a “debt settlement company” anyway?

In simple terms it is a company that promises to take your money and then negotiate with the debt collectors and original creditors to pay your debts.

The idea is if you owe $20,000, the debt settlement company can settle for $10,000 or $15,000.

The way this typically works is you pay money to the debt settlement company and it is supposed to negotiate and pay your creditors with a portion of the money you pay the company.

So, what’s the problem?

We find that most, if not all of the folks that come and see us have paid thousands, some times tens of thousands of dollars, and their debts were not resolved.

The money paid had “disappeared” and now they are being sued by their creditors.

I recognize that it is possible some people have wonderful success and never tell us about it.

But, the folks we do see who have dealt with debt settlement companies have not had good experiences.

When they discover the debts are not paid, and they demand their money back, rarely is there any company to get their money back from.

Unfortunately, these places tend to fold up and move on.

So now the consumer is getting hammered with lawsuits and has no money to settle or pay for a lawyer.  Because they paid all of their money to the scam debt settlement company.

OK, if debt settlement is not an option, what should I do about my debts?

Here’s my suggestion — handle your debt settlement on your own.

If you want help, talk to a consumer attorney and find one that you have a good feel for.

Someone who, unlike some of the debt settlement companies, actually has a real office with real employees.

Find out what advice they will give you about who to settle with and for how much and how to go about settling.

Or invest some time and money into learning this knowledge.

Almost anything is better than getting scammed out of thousands of dollars by some bogus debt settlement company.

Maybe this is an exaggeration but….

The one thing debt collection attorneys and I agree on is this.

As you might imagine, there are very few things that collection attorneys and I agree on.

However, here is one (maybe the only one!):  consumers are getting scammed over and over by the debt settlement companies.

The consumers spend all of their money and then don’t understand why they are getting sued when the debt was supposed to be paid.

You almost certainly will be better off negotiating with the collection attorney yourself than with using a debt settlement company.

If consumer protection attorneys don’t trust debt settlement companies and collection attorneys think they are scams, this might be a hint.

A hint that these are not places that you want to hire without doing some serious checking out of the program and reputation.

Contact Us.

Feel free to call us at 205-879-2447 if you have any questions.  

Or you can fill out the form on our website here to get in touch with us.  

Especially if you have been sued, make sure you act quickly while you still have time to respond.

I look forward to chatting with you.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

-John G. Watts