A Debt Management Plan may be the right option for people who are really struggling to satisfy their debts. For confidential advice from an NFCC trained, certified counselor, call 1-800-388-2227 or visit www.DebtAdvice.org.

Watch more Credit & Credit Cards videos: http://www.howcast.com/videos/313540-How-to-Choose-a-Consumer-Credit-Counseling-Service

When life throws you a curve ball, find the best agency to help you get out of debt.

Warning
Be aware that some consumer credit counseling agencies may not be legitimate or honest.

Step 1: Make a list of possible credit counselors
Draw up a list of possible credit counselors. Many colleges, credit unions, and military bases offer credit counseling programs. Find others through web searches or referrals from friends and family.

Tip
If you choose a nonprofit agency, make sure their fees are affordable.

Step 2: See if the agency is a member of a trade association
Eliminate the agencies that aren’t members of major trade associations by searching the websites of the AICCCA and the NFCC.

Tip
Find the AICCCA, or Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies, at aiccca.org. The NFCC, or National Foundation for Credit Counseling, is at nfcc.org.

Step 3: Search for complaints filed against the agencies
Contact your state Attorney General’s office, your local consumer protection agency, and the Better Business Bureau to see if any of the agencies have had complaints filed against them.

Step 4: Get information about each agency
Contact each agency remaining on your list and ask for a basic information packet. They should provide this without asking for financial information or a fee.

Step 5: Review information about services offered
Review the information about each agency’s services. Look for counselors that offer a full range of options, including budget counseling and savings and debt management classes.

Tip
Avoid agencies that offer to enroll you in a Debt Management Plan, or DMP, without reviewing your financial situation.

Step 6: Ask about fees and qualifications
Ask about fees, including set-up and monthly fees. Find out how the counselors are trained and compensated. Avoid services where counselors work on commission only.

Step 7: Get a formal, written agreement
Select an agency that offers services that best meet your needs. Get a formal, written agreement that includes a price quote. Follow their advice and you’ll be on your way to financial freedom.

Did You Know?
At the end of 2008, the total amount of credit card debt in the U.S. topped $972 billion. On average, each American household carried about $8,000 in credit card debt.

Learn about the pre-bankruptcy credit counseling requirement.

http://www.bscc.ca/page/bankruptcy.aspx – How to avoid bankruptcy – call us today at 1-866-790-8984

or Visit:

Business Solutions & Credit Counselling Services
12033 92A Avenue Surrey, BC V3V 4B8
Tel: 604-951-8984 or 1-866-790-8984
akalsey@bscc.ca
http://www.bscc.ca
https://plus.google.com/109367218980858605482
https://plus.google.com/100755473303544230759/about

A consumer proposal is a way to come up with a solution with your creditors to repay your debts. In most proposals you repay less than the full sum outstanding, plus your creditors agree to write off the rest of your debts. It’s a “win-win” for both of you.

Just what is a consumer proposal?

Unlike an informal debt settlement plan, a consumer proposal is a legally binding agreement that you and your administrator work out with your creditors.

For over a decade, the professionals at Business Solutions and Credit Counselling Services (BSCC), a registered, government-approved credit counseling firm, has assisted hundreds of thousands of consumers throughout Canada to avoid bankruptcy, prepare a consumer proposal, rebuild their credit, and pay off credit card debt. These are clients who were once struggling to manage excessive debt and financial obligations. We work with each client individually, designing manageable, realistic programs to absolve your financial burden and stress. For more information about avoiding bankruptcy and how to become debt free, please visit us at http://www.bscc.ca or call 1-866-790-8984 today!

The first step in bankruptcy is to take the credit counseling class with https://ccadvising.com. You will receive a certificate which is valid for 180 days. This certificate is required to file bankruptcy.

For More Information: Click here https://bit.ly/2PNYksQ

Credit cards can be a useful financial tool, but if you start taking on credit card debt, it can take control of your life. Learn why your relationship with credit cards is unhealthy and how you can use credit counseling to take a break from credit so you can find your financial independence and break your bad credit habits. Once you’ve found your power, then you can decide if you want to let credit back into your life.
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A counselor is an advisor who has the training and resources to help you achieve your best financial future. For confidential advice from an NFCC trained, certified counselor, call 1-800-388-2227 or visit www.DebtAdvice.org.

Transcription: Agencies like Cambridge speak to thousands of people every month, and one of the most common questions we hear is, “Will credit counseling hurt my credit score?” The short answer is no, but that comes with an explanation. “Credit counseling” is the process by which a certified credit counselor will help you create a workable financial plan that reflects your income, expenses, and goals. Your counselor will review your finances with you, give you personalized advice to help you develop a budget, provide valuable resources you can use in that process, and recommend alternative strategies to manage your situation. This type of free consultation has no impact whatsoever on your credit standing. Now, one of the options a counselor may offer is enrollment in a debt management program, or DMP. A debt management program will impact your credit, but probably not in the way you may be thinking.

Your credit scores, or “FICO scores,” are calculated from the data in your credit report at any given moment. That’s why they often change from month to month, as your creditors report your activity. The data is grouped into five categories: Payment History, which represents 35% of your score; Amounts Owed, which is 30% of your score; Length of Credit History – 15%, New Credit, 10%; and Types of Credit Used, which also accounts for 10% of your FICO score. The importance of any one factor depends on the total amount of information in your credit report at that moment. This means that what impacts your score may not impact another person’s score as heavily. Now, on to the good news.

Fair Isaac and Company, developers of the FICO scoring model, considers debt management enrollment as a neutral mark – neither good nor bad, and it carries no weight when calculating your score. This wasn’t always true. In 1989 debt management was considered a negative notation; however, the formula changed in 1998 because people were enrolling in DMPs as a proactive step. Instead of looking for help after they fell behind on their bills, people were reaching out to credit counseling agencies before things got out of hand. So if the creditors you include on your program note that your account is being repaid through a reduced payment and interest program, you won’t lose any points as a result of that notation. However, each of your prospective lenders has its own policies. One may view debt management as a non-issue, while others may interpret it negatively. There’s simply no way to predict that reaction.

Although participation in a debt management program isn’t a factor in FICO’s formula, the process of enrollment will affect your score. In a DMP, your credit counseling agency pays your bills once each month, and many creditors drastically reduce their interest rates and waive their late and overlimit fees. In return for those benefits, they require that the accounts you include in your plan be closed. That’s reasonable. Now, closing those accounts lowers your score because the amount of available credit is reduced, and that’s a part of the Amounts Owed category. The number of points you lose depends on the other information in your credit profile at that time. If you have a good credit history, with a lot of accounts in good standing, you may lose just a few points. If you only have a few accounts, the impact may be greater.

At the time you enroll, the agency will let your creditors know when your payment will be disbursed; however, as you transition into the program, you could experience a late or missed payment. That would impact your score, but the length of the program, generally 3 to 5 years, gives you more than enough time to make up for that initial event. It’s also important to remember that even though participation in a DMP is a neutral mark, it doesn’t “protect” you from incurring a negative notation, either. Just like when you’re managing your bills on your own, if you miss a payment on one of your accounts, your history will be affected. That’s one of the things you’ll learn while you’re working with an agency. You’re not just a number to us – we want to show you how to earn lower interest rates by developing good credit habits. Making payments on time is one of them.

If you pull your own credit report or review your score through a free website like CreditKarma.com, which I highly recommend, you may discover that you have too much debt. For example, if all of the credit limits on your accounts added up to $10,000, and all of the balances on those accounts added up to $5,000, you’d be using 50% of your available credit. On creditkarma.com, you’d see a note like “proportion of balances to credit limits is too high on revolving bank accounts,” which means that your score has already been impacted negatively.

(Insufficient room. Please email yourmoney2@cambridgecredit.org for complete transcription.)

Using credit counseling to consolidate your bills into one lower monthly payment may be a great way to manage falling behind on finances for some, but others may not qualify or have a steady income to support the payment. Who is CCCS the perfect fit for?

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Michael Bovee started CRN in 2004 with a mission to provide people in need with detailed credit and debt help. The DebtBytes Channel is an extension of the CRN blog, and is dedicated to finding the debt relief option or strategy that works best for you.

What is CREDIT COUNSELING? What does CREDIT COUNSELING mean? CREDIT COUNSELING meaning – CREDIT COUNSELING definition – CREDIT COUNSELING explanation.

Source: Wikipedia.org article, adapted under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ license.

Credit counseling (known in the United Kingdom as Debt counselling) is commonly a process that is used to help individual debtors with debt settlement through education, budgeting and the use of a variety of tools with the goal to reduce and ultimately eliminate debt. Credit counseling is most often done by Credit counseling agencies that are empowered by contract to act on behalf of the debtor to negotiate with creditors to resolve debt that is beyond a debtor’s ability to pay. Some of the agencies are non-profits that charge at no or non-fee rates, while others can be for-profit and include high fees. Regulations on credit counseling and Credit counseling agencies varies by country and sometimes within regions of the countries themselves. In the United States, individuals filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy are required to receive counseling.

In the United States, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling was established in 1951. The modern practice known as ‘‘credit counseling’’ was initiated by creditor banks and credit card companies during the mid-1960s to address the growing volume of personal bankruptcies.

Although there is variation from country to country and even in regions within country, consumer debt is primarily made up of home loans, credit card debt and car loans. Credit counseling includes an array of services to address consumer debt that is not within the debtor’s ability to pay. In addition to education, a popular credit counseling option is the ‘‘Debt management plan’’ (‘‘DMP’’, known in the United Kingdom as the Individual voluntary arrangement or “IVA”). In order to initiate a DMP, a consumer would authorize the credit counselor to contact each of the consumer’s unsecured creditors and negotiate with each creditor to lower the consumer’s monthly payment amount, to lower the interest rate, and to waive any outstanding late fees. The debt was then ‘‘consolidated’’ into a single payment.

Credit counselors can sometimes negotiate debt relief, where part or whole of an individual debt is forgiven. Another option is Debt consolidation, in which one new loan replaces multiple unsecured credit debts. The Debt-snowball method is a budgeting approach that addresses debt systematically.

Global criticism of credit counseling comes primarily from predatory practices that take advantage of debtors that are already struggling. These practices include failing to meet required standards, charging unlawful or unreasonable fees, failing to provide affordable solutions for consumers, and neglecting to make customers aware of free debt services available elsewhere.