Negotiating With Creditors

Get On The Phone And Make Some Calls

For the most part, all debt consolidation services do is phone your creditors and negotiate deals on your behalf in terms of how much of your credit you can repay and how much the creditor can simply write off. Then the debt consolidation service take all of your lowered payments, combine them into one lump payment, apply their fee and then give you a monthly payment that takes care of the bills you requested them to handle. If there was anything in this simple process that you believe you cannot do yourself, then you need to seriously go back and re-read what I have just written. You simply be your own debt consolidation service and save yourself the monthly fee that you would be paying to this consolidation company. It might not be the easiest thing to do, but it can be done.

Creditors simply want to be repaid – that’s it. They don’t want to sue you, they don’t want to repo your car, they just want you to pay them back what you owe them. Most consumers do not think that you can pick up the phone and actually negotiate with a creditor directly long before you begin to lose your cars or your house or any of your worldly possessions. This is essentially where these debt consolidation services come from, they thrive on the notion that most people are either too lazy or even too naïve to contact their creditors themselves so they will charge you a service fee each and every month to call your creditors for you that initial time. The last thing to add to your stress when you are in debt is yet another payment so why don’t you save yourself the hassle and the fee and just pick up the phone!

Many years ago I fell behind on my car installments. Instead of waiting for them to repossess my car I decided to call the loan company. They simply refinanced my car loan, extended it for a longer period of time (2 more years), but reduced my payments by cutting them in half and I was able to keep my new car – easy. You never know what your creditors will agree to until you ask the question. So don’t waste your time with debt consolidation services, why don’t you just call your creditors and work with them yourself?