Repair Your Credit Profile

As is well known this last year has been one of the worst in terms of economic troubles.  This recession has placed millions of American citizens into extremely precarious financial predicaments.  It looks like virtually everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  There are record numbers in houses getting foreclosed upon, the unemployment rate is soaring, and to add insult to injury unsecured credit card debt has hit an all time high.  These headaches are leaving consumers to search for a manageable method of debt relief to assist them in getting back up on their feet.  There are two popular forms of debt relief that individuals have been utilizing, them being debt settlement and credit counseling.  

Consumer credit counseling (CCCS) is a service offered and run by the creditors themselves.  The advantages of hiring a program like this are to have your debts consolidated into one monthly payment and to have the interest rate reduced.  This isn’t a real system of credit card debt reduction because the balance itself is not in reality reduced, just the interest rate.  The negative aspects to this program are that the payments often times are not much less than the payments a consumer was putting out to begin with.  In addition if you go last on just one payment you will lose the advantages of the program and get the boot.  

Credit card debt settlement is a much different method of debt reduction.  When using a credit card debt settlement program the benefits are saving money and precious time.  In most situations the debtor will save in excess of fifty percent of what their balance previously was and see themselves out of credit card debt in just a few years.  Now there is a negative side to credit card debt settlement and that is the debtor must go delinquent on the payments for the credit card companies to be in a position to work out a settlement.  So naturally your FICO history will go down when you start this plan.  However after the settlements start going through the credit score will rebound and go back up.

These two sorts of programs will not be feasible for all.  Which plan is right for you depends on your unique financial predicament.  I recommend looking into both options and see which one fits your budgets and goals.

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