Desparate Leads to Stupid – Stay Away from Debt Elimination Scams
If you perform a simple Google search for debt reduction, you’ll find over three million results of companies which claim to help to eliminate and reduce your debt dramatically. This really shouldn’t be all that surprising considering how much consumer credit people are making use of in this modern era. Credit cards, home equity loans, title loans, payday loans, 90 days same as cash, auto loans, you name it; people are borrowing money through it. A lot of people are up to their eyeballs in debt, and want out. There are a number of companies which prey upon consumers that will claim to eliminate your debt without all of the work, however they’re scams, and you should avoid them.
One of the major scams in this field is the “debt elimination letter” scam, they’re all scams, stay far away. The basic premise of this scam is that for a rather large fee, the “debt elimination agency” will send you a letter which you can show your creditors to get your debts waived. A lot of people would love this type of letter, but they have no legal basis in the real world. Most of the time if you try to use one of these letters the company will just laugh at you. Instead, actually use that money to pay down some of the debt instead. A lot of these agencies falsely claim that some of the fees credit card companies charge are illegal so the entire debt should be void. Sometimes these letters are called “redemption certificates and “bondage for discharge of debt.”
There’s also the “illegality of the credit card” scam. It’s similar to the debt elimination letter scam, but instead they claim that the entire credit card system is illegal, and since the system is illegal they cannot legally charge you for your debt. They will often charge thousands of dollars for such letters, stay far away from them.
Finally, there’s the “new credit identity” scam. In this scam, companies will offer to create a how new social security identity for you so that you don’t have to live with your past financial sins, and get a clean slate for your credit record. It’s actually very illegal to do this and will probably get you in trouble with the feds.
If you are in debt, there’s no magic formula. If you absolutely think you have to go to a debt consolidation company or a debt reduction company, go to Consumer Credit Counseling Services, and nobody else. Chances are you don’t even need CCCS, instead just work very hard and work to eliminate your debt quickly and systematically. Take extra jobs, cut down on your living expenses; that’s the only way to do it.
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