If you're knee deep in debt, cannot pay your bills and wish to avoid collection calls, you may consider debt settlement (also known as debt negotiation). This is when you negotiate and reduce the outstanding debt by 40-60% of the amount you owe. The creditor forgives the remaining debt thereby helping you to get out of debt faster.
How settlement (or credit card debt settlement) works
Debt settlement companies offer a settlement program wherein they negotiate with your creditors/CA in order to settle the debt for less than what you owe. The companies charge an upfront fee for their services. Given below is an example of how debt settlement or credit card debt settlement works.
How credit card debt settlement works - An example
Let's say Jesse owes a total debt of $100,000 on 5 credit cards. She is finding it difficult to keep up with the minimum payments. She has earlier consulted a credit counseling agency but the monthly payments they negotiated with her creditors were too high for her to pay. Jesse doesn't want to file bankruptcy as she does not want to involve the court. So, finally Jesse ends up working with a credit card debt settlement company XYZ. Here are the 4 steps on how Jesse could settle credit cards and pay off her dues.
- Stop payment to creditors: The representative at the credit card debt settlement company asks Jesse to stop paying her creditors and deposit a certain amount monthly into a savings account (i.e. a trust account that XYZ creates for Jesse).
- No more handling of collection calls: While Jesse starts falling behind on her payments, she may receive collection calls, which are effectively handled by the representative. Jesse doesn't have to handle such harassing calls on her own.
- Negotiation starts soon after: As Jesse accumulates good amount of dollars into the trust account, the representative at the credit card debt settlement company starts negotiating with her creditors one by one.
- Debt is reduced by 40-60%: Finding that Jesse won't be able to pay enough, her creditors agree to accept a reduced amount, say around 40-60% of her outstanding bills.
While Jess pays off one debt, she waits for better offers from other creditors. She makes sure that any extra money coming in would be used to pay off her bills. Finally, after a period of 2 years, Jesse is able to settle credit cards debt with all her creditors.
Whether it's a credit card debt settlement program or one which includes other dues, you should stop paying your creditors initially. Instead, send in those payments to your settlement company. Otherwise, you cannot gather enough funds to settle credit cards dues and other bills.
Once you have enough funds deposited into the trust account, debt settlement (or credit card debt settlement) companies negotiate with your creditors/CA and attempt to stop all collection efforts. Find out the details on how to negotiate credit card settlement (or debt settlement on other bills) from the 6 steps in debt negotiation program.
