CCCS and other debt counseling agencies

[beautifullyhaunted]

Has anyone used them? Had success with them? DB says his mother used one and has had great success with them, but he of course cant remember who she used. Is it true it looks just like a bankruptcy on your credit report? Ive heard so many different things about them, I dont know what to believe. One told me to file bankruptcy, CCCS says I can get out of debt with $600 a month. So, any suggestions? Who to talk to? Who to try? I obviously cant start working with one until I've got a job (fingers crossed for this interview today haha) but I'd like to have some information and actually be ready to start paying when that first paycheck hits my bank account. tia ladies

[FrugalMomof3]

Ok please dont flame me but I really think that you should avoid such companies, my personal opinion is that we already know what we need to do (Snowball) or add extra payments to each min. payment due on CC's etc...

Think about it, your paying smoeone else to help you pay off your CC's faster, wouldnt you want to put the money your paying them into the bills themselves?

If you do choose to go with them be careful, but again YOU CAN DO THIS YOURSELF and not pay anyone and still keep your credit report free of charge offs, bankruptcy, etc.. JMHO

[beautifullyhaunted]

O.k please don't flame me but I really think that you should avoid such companies, my personal opinion is that we already know what we need to do (Snowball) or add extra payments to each min. payment due on CC's etc...

Think about it, your paying someone else to help you pay off your CC's faster, wouldn't you want to put the money your paying them into the bills themselves?

If you do choose to go with them be careful, but again YOU CAN DO THIS YOURSELF and not pay anyone and still keep your credit report free of charge offs, bankruptcy, etc.. JMHO

Thank you for being honest, I appreciate your opinion

I just heard that they can lower interest rates and get late fees taken off...and with a judgment on me and all of this nonsense, I just want to make sure I explore every avenue you know? I hadn't even considered the fact that they charge you for their services.

[FrugalMomof3]

Its true they "can" lower interest rates, but I am sure you could try and do this yourself but if you must use them talk about the fees involved upfront and try to haggle with them, your helping them help you.

[YankeeMom]

Personally, I feel bankruptcy should be the VERY LAST RESORT. Nothing left to sell, no job, no financial anything to speak of.

We are using CCCS to pay off our $60k debt in less than 5 yrs. Be sure it's a true Consumer Credit Counseling Service and NOT a Debt Consolidation business There's a huge difference and a lot people (probably Tracy included) get them confused. With CCCS you pay your creditors the FULL amount owed, there are no payouts, no negotiated amts to pay. You pay everything you owe. You just send the money to CCCS & they distribute it. But that's not all they do.

CCCS is a non-profit organization that does more than just help you get out of debt. They offer free credit counselling and a nonprofit debt management program. They help you set up a budget, show you where you can cut back on expenses, and work with creditors to get your debt paid off. I can't say enough good things about CCCS. Like I said, they are non-profit. The only fees we have paid/do pay to them are a one-time fee of something like $35 for paperwork processing etc to get the ball rolling and after that it's $12/month which is all for processing paperwork.

Not only have they put us on a payment plan, but they have worked with our creditors to lower our interest rates (significantly!) and got them to agree to a certain payment amount per month. Before signing up, we had a couple of creditors that were ready to take us to court (because we got so behind when dh lost his job last year) and had phone calls morning noon & night. Once we signed up with CCCS, the phone calls were significantly less and those who did call we could direct them to our person at CCCS we didn't have to deal with them AT ALL. That, to me, was the second best part...second only to getting out of debt.

I see you are in NY like me. I'm in Northern NY, here is the non-profit CCCS of Central NY. http://www.cccscny.org/index.asp

[YankeeMom]

ETA: Debt consolidation is different. When you go through Debt Consolidation they negotiate with your creditors to pay LESS than what is owed. They get them to agree to take say $1500 on a $2000 debt. That $500 difference can come back to bite you in the butt years later when your creditor "sells" that debt to another creditor for pennies on the dollar then the new creditor starts chasing you down.

So the DS company gets them to agree to less, then THEY pay off all your creditors and YOU are now in debt to the DS place. You basically just trade multiple creditors for one creditor. There are usually a lot more fees & finance charges associated with DS because they are for profit businesses...they make money on your debt.

[Buckeye5]

Another idea is to go to the Daveramsey site and find the info to talk to one of his financial counselors. I believe that they help people in your situation.

[Michelle68]

As YankeeMom says, CCCS is a good, reputable, non-profit credit coundeling service that I would recommend. As she says, though, make sure it really is CCCS and not some for-profit rip-off place posing as a credit counseling agency.


--Michelle

[annymoll]

I agree that CCCS sounds like an option for you.I cannot imagine bankruptcy as an option.

[Kaos Kitty]

I paid all of my debts through a non-profit credit counseling company up here in Canada. It took me 5 years to pay it all off, and 3 years after that for my credit to become a blank slate again. The positives were going from 22% interest in some cases, down to a flat 5% interest rate on all my debt, a single monthly payment and a specific schedule to be debt free. I also avoided being hounded by creditors.

I made the monthly payment to the counseling agency and they divided it equally between my creditors. I also had the option of making extra payments to pay off my debt early.

The negatives were that the "debt counseling" and information was obvious and not very helpful to me, I've found much more of value and encouragement in places like FV. Also, the credit counseling place was run by volunteers, who seemed very overloaded and absentminded. I watched my payments and statements like a hawk! Often I would receive my statements two months behind my payments. Honest mistakes are made, and so I had to be very pro-active in catching them. There were a few times when my last statement didn't tally with the new one. Their hours of operation were inconvenient, M-F 9-4pm (when most people are working!), and I often had to play phone tag with my counselor when I had questions.

Overall it was a positive experience, much better than bankruptcy. In Canada, debt consolidation is a 7 on my credit report (bad but not hopeless) and is cleared off after 3 years. Bankruptcy is a 9 on my credit report (the lowest) and takes 7 years to be cleared off. There may be something comparable in the US.

There have been cases of misconduct and fraud in the news with some companies. I felt safe with mine because 1) my debts were consolidated through a court order and 2) it was a reputable, government funded non-profit organization. I liked Yankee Mom's advise on finding one in your area.

Best of luck with your interview!

[YankeeMom]

Another bonus....with CCCS of Central NY, you can access your acct online and see the balance & payments in real time No waiting for paper statements.

And no penalty for extra payments or paying things off early either. In my signature I have how much we have paid on our debt just since last September. I'm about to update it again in a few days Love seeing my balance get smaller!

[beautifullyhaunted]

Another bonus....with CCCS of Central NY, you can access your acct online and see the balance & payments in real time No waiting for paper statements.

And no penalty for extra payments or paying things off early either. In my signature I have how much we have paid on our debt just since last September. I'm about to update it again in a few days Love seeing my balance get smaller!

Thats exactly whom I've been in contact with! Thank you SO much for your advice. First of all, don't worry, bankruptcy is NOT an option for me. I had no problem racking the debt up, so I'm going to suck it up and work my a$$ off to pay it, end of story.

Does their financial counseling cost $? That's awesome that you can access everything online. Do they work with student loans or no? tia!

[YankeeMom]

They do work with Student Loans, I believe. Mine were in forebearance when we signed up for it (still are) but they asked if I wanted to include them.

The financial counseling is free

[christina33]

I am enrolled and before I did so I checked around at a lot of agencies etc.
I live in NC and my local CCCS ( a nonprofit not the for profit that advertise on TV ) was Triangle Family Services. THe used Harbour Credit and now CCCS of Denver to process payments.

I have nothing bad to say about the entire experience so far. As with anything the you have to excersise caution. There are some negatives but if done correctly is a valuable tool.
I could not have done it without them..because unlike commonly suggested when debt counseling comes up ..negotiate to a lower rate.. I tried several times and was unsucessful.. MBNA and Citibank would not budge.Add that to the rising rates ( which they do WHEN U get in trouble) late fees and everything else the cost of keeping the cards kept rising. Not to mention the constant phone calls.. it takes it tolls. My interest rates is about 1-10 % between the two remaining cards.

If you are planning to purchase a house or move within the next two years I would advise against it.
Your credit score will fall initially and they usually will not report you as current until the 3 months into the program. ALthough Citibank did not do this, they immediately began reporting as current. I think my score fell to about 520 then continued to rebound each month. I am about 670 now. But if you can't afford credit and can't buy anything the score in a sense is meaningless anyway.

Take out a secured card.. my CCCS allowed me to do this and it is allowed by some CC companies to be used in case of emergencies. I carry a small balance and have not had any complaints but then again the secured CC is with Bank of America that also hold the one of the card in CCCS.

I purchase a car believe it or not through my credit union while in CCCS. they have special program for folks like me. I live in the country and the bus only runs during the weekday so not having a car is not an option. THe interest rate is 6% and since they report that has helped the scores.

You have to be vigilant and find a reputable company. The money u pay in service fees should never exceed about $20-50 a month. You can claim this money back in taxes at the end of the year. Check out nfcc.org.
If you need more info just post and I will give

[bridge]

Make sure to use a nonprofit sevices. I got majorly snookered by a credit consolidation company (Emergency Debt Relief) quite a few years ago. I am still building my credit back.