When a person gets so far into credit card debt that they have no clue what they should do, they often begin to panic. One thing many people do in an attempt to make the situation better is contact a credit card debt consolidation service. Before you do that, however, it would be wise to be one of the few people who actually understands how such services operate.
A little look into what credit card debt consolidation services really do will help you to decide whether or not you really want to entrust your financial future to credit card debt consolidation services. It is true that the last thing on anyone's mind when they are months behind on payments is their credit rating but financial problems can sometimes be fixed easier than you may think and if you make the right decisions now then you can cut years off the healing process down the road.
The credit card debt consolidation services companies are in it for themselves and not to help you. They sign you up for their service and then charge you one monthly rate to pay your bills for you and in that monthly rate is a monthly charge for their service.
Credit card debt consolidation services supposedly help you by contacting the creditors who you owe money to and negotiate a payment plan with them that is in your best interests. Many people use these services because they think that they are unable to make negotiations with the credit card companies themselves. Remember that allowing a third party to carry out the entire negotiation process without you means that you will never really know whether or not you could have gotten a better deal with the creditors.
Once negotiations have been completed, the credit card debt consolidation service that you are working with will let you know about any card cancellations and tell you what amount you need to pay them each month in order for them to pay off your bills. The process sounds easy because it is, and you don't need an outside service to do the work for you.
Then They Send You A Bill
The credit car debt consolidation company that makes all the arrangements for your agreement with the credit card companies will also pay those companies for you; you just have to send them the money on a monthly basis. In addition to causing serious damage to your credit rating, using one of these services will also eliminate a large percentage of whatever amount of money you are saving. For example, if you save $200 each month because of consolidating your debts but the service charges $100 each month, you have gained very little.
That is all they do and it is something you can do yourself but with your best interest in mind and not someone else's.
