Understand how credit counseling works. How credit counseling can make paying off credit card debt easy, affordable and stress free.
Who needs credit counseling? We suggest anyone with over $10,000 of credit card debt, current with their payments but struggling to pay more than the minimums is a good candidate for counseling.
The credit counseling process. A credit counselor begins the process with some simple intake questions such as marital status, number of people in household and what the client’s goals are. Next, we pull their credit report. This is a soft pull; therefore, it will not affect their credit. Now, the counselor will review liabilities. This includes any mortgages, car loans, credit cards, student loans, personal loans or any other accounts showing a balance. Next, the counselor will confirm the balances and the monthly payment amounts with the client. In some cases, we may need to obtain the interest rates on accounts from the client over the phone.
Recommendations
One of the recommendations might be enrolling into a debt management plan. On this plan, the client usually receives lower interest rates and lower payments. As a matter of fact, last year, the average client had their total payment decrease from $915 to $694 on our program. That’s a 24% decrease payment for our average customer. They also saw their average interest rate fall from 23% down below 7%.
Credit Effect
A Debt Management Plan typically has a neutral effect on your credit. You might see your score initially go down because your accounts get closed. For people that are already maxed out on their cards, they probably don’t see much change in their score at the beginning since their score is already on the lower end. But over time, as long as payments are being made on time to all accounts and new accounts are not getting opened outside the program, you should see your score gradually increase. A recent study at DebtWave showed the average client’s scores increasing about 15 points per year.
But we don’t recommend focusing so much on your credit score as a good credit score will ultimately lead you to acquiring more debt. If you have a large amount of credit card debt, focus on paying it off and nothing else. Learn to live within your means! Spend less than you make. Become Debt Free and stay that way!
Debt Management vs. Debt Settlement
A Debt Management Plan often gets confused with Debt Settlement. These plans are very different so it’s important to know how they work. A Debt Settlement Plan requires you to starve your creditors of payments for months and months and sometimes years. This of course can ruin your credit. Once the accounts are severely delinquent, the creditors will settle for about 50% of what you owe. The debt settlement company will collect monthly payment from you but won’t disburse payments until you’ve saved about 50% of one of your debts. Not only do you need to be cautious of the credit effect, but you need to understand the tax implications as well. Whatever amount of debt is forgiven will be considered taxable income. So let’s say you have $10,000 of debt and you successfully reach a settlement for only $4,500. The $5,500 debt that was forgiven becomes taxable income. Expect to pay 20-25% to Uncle Sam, so around $1,200 will be due to the IRS. And you may get sued by creditors along the way. When you fall that far delinquent, some creditors may take action to try to garnish your wages. We would avoid this debt settlement program unless you absolutely cannot afford payments on your own or the payments on a debt management program.
What to expect after enrolling?
The enrollment process consists of you paying a start-up fee which is usually around $50-$99. That amount varies depending on the state you live in. Once the fee is paid, the credit counseling agency will then contact all your creditors by sending them what are called “proposals”. Most of these proposals are sent electronically but some creditors still live in the ice age and require these to be sent by mail or fax. Although, each creditor varies, most of them reply within a week with an “Accepted” or “Declined”. DebtWave usually has an 85-90% acceptance rate with the creditors. Now, when a creditor declines the initial proposal, most times it can be fixed. Some of the more common reasons for decline include the balance was incorrect and they want a slightly higher payment, the account number was incorrect, the name on the account doesn’t match or the account is already under a hardship plan. Regardless if the proposal has been accepted by your creditors, DebtWave will debit your payment and disburse the payment to your creditors. You have the option to make ACH payments weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly or monthly with DebtWave.
Comments