Credit Counseling Services  

- Anita Johnston

Do you have debt collectors calling you on the telephone and are receiving more letters in your mailbox from overdue bills that advertisements? If so, the worst thing you can do is ignore the situation. The best help you can get is to find a credit counseling service that can help you get back on track with your finances. This will save you many headaches, restless nights sleep, and you will be able to answer your telephone again instead of pretending you are not home.

A credit counseling service can help you receive discounts, negotiate with your creditors, obtain late fee waivers and help you get a plan of action to take control of our finances instead of your finances ruling over you. They can even consolidate all of your bills into one monthly payment instead of paying each one separately; this can help you tremendously in interest payments. You will not even have to contact your debtors or talk to them. The credit counseling service will do all of this for you all you will have to do is send the counseling service your payment each month and they will pay off your debts.

There is a draw back to hiring a credit counseling service; you will loose several credit points. This will show lending companies that you are not the best candidate when it comes to loaning money.

Nonetheless, from your credit report standing using a credit counseling service does look better than repeatedly late payments over several months. After awhile, lending companies will overlook the fact that you renegotiated your interest rate because it will show that you are trying to clear up all of your debt honestly instead of running away from your creditors. They would much rather see you do this than to file bankruptcy on your home. Therefore, really it is a win win situation in the long run.

A credit counseling service is really the middleman between you and your creditors. They do take a percentage of your payment each month for their hard work, but it will be work it to have a clean bill of health financially. The fees they charge may be up to 10 percent of your monthly payment. However, remember to do your homework on the credit counseling service you intend to use as some are also working with creditors and will get you to pay a higher installment so they can receive extra money from the creditors.

Before you sign the dotted line, find out what will happen if you miss a payment. You may not think you will ever do this, but look at your past record. It would be best to know what might happen even if it never does.

After, all of this is complete and the credit counseling service is paying off your old debts with your monthly payment, do not go out and try to get other loans. This will cause you to be back in the same situation as before.