Debt Settlement Company Credit Associates flat out lies on commercials

As we get older we seem to fall into certain patterns or habits, so for me every morning I wake up and as I get ready for work I have the morning news on. This somehow happened to me a few years ago, I think it’s automatic the moment you cross over the age of 40.

One of the consistent annoying commercials is one from the debt settlement company called “Credit Associates”. I always get amazed at how TV networks don’t get sued for airing what is flat out lie to the public.

They start almost from the beginning by saying “there is a secret the credit card companies don’t want you to know, if you have more than $5,000 worth of debt you have the right to settle that debt for a fraction of what you owe”.

NOTE/LIE # 1: there IS NO secret…..

NEWSFLASH for consumers reading this ANY book, commercial or Ad if you even see or hear the sales person saying they have a secret that banks don’t want you to know it is such a lie it’s crazy. Example, how can it be a secret if they are advertising to tell you?

It’s a gimmick trick to get you to call so they have a chance of selling you so don’t be a sucker.

Back to my point….

There is no law that says any debt over $5,000 gives you the right to settle on the debt based on what they say in their commercials.

$5,000.00 is probably their bottom line that they can charge before they can make any decent sort of profit that is worth their time and expense on the consumer while dragging out the process.

While I have no clue how they get away with lying like this what I can say is I actually got a solicitation call from them so I jumped up for joy and pressed “1” to talk to a representative.

My representative was named “John” he did not sound like anyone I know named John. I will point out and I said I was interested but I was super curious as is my nature and wanted to know what was “the secret” or law that allowed me to save thousands like their commercial said since I was never aware of or heard about.

Wouldn’t you know it but John didn’t seem to know what I was talking about and went into his script.

I kept interrupting him to say I want to know first what this law is first before seeing what his company can “do to help me”. He kept trying to read through the script and I said “ hey if this information is above your paygrade then that’s no big deal so put me on hold or transfer me to a supervisor so I can get the answer and then back to you to move forward”.

I was giving him EVERY option available to get me the answer (if there was one) and he would not or should I can could not answer the question. I then started saying “listen your company advertises this so why are you not prepared to answer this question which is in the first 10 seconds of your companies commercial or at least be able to transfer me to someone who can at least tell me the answer”?

As I had some time at the moment and justified however long I dragged this out for utilizing the time for this blog I must have been on the phone for at least 15-20 minutes.

Towards the end of him trying to push past my question and finishing his script and I said to “John” that if your incapable or unwilling to answer the simplest question on the 1st sentence of your companies commercial it’s obvious this company is a scam company so answer the question the next time you speak or I am hanging up the phone.

Shocking result of what happen next? I hung up the phone.

What most of these companies do is basically take advantage of your unwillingness to talk to your creditors. The collectors can be jerks and some are nice. Once a bill has gone past the 120 day mark creditors are open to ‘re-discuss” the original terms of the agreement. Now of course to get to that mark your credit score is destroyed and you may be a candidate for credit repair but maybe not as your credit report is file specific. Think of the term different strokes for different folks.

Without any knowledge whatsoever you should be able to get them to give you a minimum of 20-30% discount off of the current debt owed. An experienced person in this industry can go much lower, I have gotten an average when helping clients with this issue anywhere from a 70-90% savings.

Quick story to end this blog, had a client ask me to look at what their in-laws got themselves into and said sure will be happy to give my opinion. It was a debt settlement program, they had several credit cards and they were paying $375 a month into a “pot” so to speak and when the funds grew large enough they would go in , settle one account and so on.

The issue was in all of the fine print and there was a lot of it but on the page with the fees etc it was CLEARLY marked that this “company” was charging “$221.00 a month” to take their money as their fees that they have not performed and would not perform until these particular clients had at least $1,000 to settle debt # 1.

So they were only saving approx. $154 a month towards settling their bills. They were in shock but I said I didn’t understand why they were as this was clearly printed and they said the person didn’t tell them that and they didn’t look at the paperwork and only signed where he said they needed to sign.

I then said, you mean the “Sales person”??

They got silent really quick, and I gave them advice on what to do but said they have no recourse as they signed the papers and the fees were clearly marked.

You can do this yourself and save some money if you want to or if you choose to hire someone make sure you get some solid numbers and make sure you’re getting some good savings. I had a guy who owe $127,000 in unsecured debt and got everything settled for less than $40,000 which included my fees so he saved over $80,000.

That was one heck of a job and time consuming but normally do not deal with something that large typically.

Moral of this story, READ what you sign and NEVER make an impulse buy/decision. If your being constantly called about your decision then it seems they NEED your money, go with the person who makes you feel comfortable, has a background that can be validated by outside parties and follows up with you when YOU ASK THEM TOO.

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email me today at: wayne@waynethecreditguy.com