If you have several outstanding debts and if you don’t have enough money to pay off all of those debts, you can negotiate and settle your debts. Debt settlement or debt negotiation is the process of settling your debts or lowering your debt amount. You can negotiate with your creditors and settle your debts on your own or else, you can also take the help of a debt settlement company or debt negotiation services. There are various debt negotiation services that will offer to help you in settling your debts. However not all are authentic ones and can even scam you.
Finding authentic debt negotiation services:
Some of the characteristics that you should check with are:
1. If the negotiation company makes false promises – You should talk to the debt negotiation company and find out if the company makes any kinds of false promises like settling your debts by half and so on. The FTC or the Federal Trade Commission prohibits the settlement or the negotiation companies to make any kind of false promises.
2. If the negotiation company is accredited – Find out if the negotiation company has an accreditation with the Better Business Bureau or the BBB. The BBB is a corporation that maintains a list of most of the companies on the basis of their works and the credibility of their service.
3. If the company charges upfront fees – Check if the company you are going to settle for charges any kind of upfront fees. That is, as per the FTC no settlement or negotiation company can charge upfront fees from the consumer till the company is able to settle at least one of the debts of the consumer and the consumer has started to make the payments as per the settlement agreement.
4. If the company has complaints against it – You should also try to find out if the debt negotiation services that you are checking with have any kinds of complaints against them and their services. You can check with the complaints and every other kind of detail about the company with your State’s Attorney General or his website.
5. If the company discusses about the process – Good debt negotiation services generally discuss with their consumer about the whole negotiation or the settlement process and its effect on your credit. They should tell you that debt settlement generally hurts our credit as you are required to miss payments before the debts get settled.
You need to check with all of these otherwise, you can get scammed by the negotiation company. You should also be aware of your rights as a consumer so that you can fight back in case you get scammed.