subject: Debt Relief Frauds - How Government Watchdogs Ensure Debt Settlement Programs Are Legitimate [print this page] There have been an increased number of scams regarding debt settlement in the last few years. The process is quite simple, you find a debt settlement company that seems to be legitimate and it looks very professional, you hire them and then they ask for a big cash advance. As soon as they get your money, they disappear and you are left with the same amount of debt if not even worse. These scams are not just one or two cases but can be found all over the internet and they say that for every legitimate company there is also a fake one.
All that changed in July when the government promised to stop these fake companies from stealing more money from desperate consumers and stopped each debt settlement company from taking any fees in advance. You no longer give a big sum of money in advance and just wait to see if the company can settle your debt as they promised. This used to be the case not long ago and if you didn't give enough money, they would hardly bother to get you a good deal and you would have been left with almost the same amount of debt which you started with. These new laws will help put a stop to that and you will only pay after you see your debt reduced to an affordable amount.
Now all settlement companies are monitored by government watchdogs that try to make this industry a lot more legitimate so that consumers don't have to worry about the risk of losing all their money when they are looking to hire a settlement company and clear a part of their debt. For most of them, financial settlement is the last option they have before they are forced to file for bankruptcy. This is why the government is so keen on helping consumers clear their debt, so that they can avoid bankruptcy and not be forced to ruin their long term credit when they can clear their debt in a couple of years and keep a good credit score by using debt relief options.
Debt settlement is a viable alternative to filing bankruptcy. Most consumers are able to eliminate at least 60% of their unsecured debt while avoiding many of the negative consequences with filing bankruptcy.
Debt Relief Frauds - How Government Watchdogs Ensure Debt Settlement Programs Are Legitimate
