The Debt Relief Industry will be forever changed by the announcement and publishing of new rules from the FTC today. The rules are designed to protect consumers from those marketing and providing debt settlement services.
The most contested measure anticipated in the new rules is a ban on companies charging upfront fees. Upfront fees have been held up as necessary by the majority of debt settlement companies who have lobbied heavily to maintain the status quo. Consumer advocates and regulators have argued that upfront fees are the equivalent of an abusive business practice. We, at CRN and Debt Bytes, agree! Which is why CRN fees for full service debt settlement have always been based on SUCCESS, after the creditor is paid.
Stay tuned to Debt Bytes, as we will be covering the impacts of these changes in the coming weeks.
For Immediate Release
July 28, 2010 **MEDIA ADVISORY FOR TOMORROW**
FTC Chairman to Announce a New Debt Relief Rule to Protect Financially Distressed Consumers at Middle Class Task Force Event
WASHINGTON – Tomorrow, Thursday, July 29th, at 1:30 PM ET, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz will announce a new rule to protect consumers of debt relief services at a Middle Class Task Force event at the White House. Following the Chairman’s announcement, Vice President Biden will discuss the administration’s consumer protection agenda and the importance of consumer protection to middle-class families.
This event will be POOLED for TV cameras, and OPEN to print, online, radio and still photographers. An RSVP is required to participate.
WHAT: FTC Chairman to Announce a New Debt Relief Rule to Protect Financially Distressed Consumers at Middle Class Task Force Event
WHO: Vice President Joe Biden, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz
WHEN: Thursday, July 29, 2010, 1:30 PM ET
Gather time: 1:00 PM ET at the White House stakeout location
RSVP: Press who wish to cover this event should RSVP to press@ovp.eop.gov by tomorrow, Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 8:00 AM ET. **Press who DO NOT have a White House hard pass should include their Date of Birth and Social Security Number. All press must enter the White House at the Northwest Gate.**
You have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When struggling to manage your debt, however, it often seems as though those rights have been suspended!
The struggle to pay bills can make you feel as though you don’t have a life. If it seems as though all you are doing is working to pay the bills and getting nowhere, you could feel imprisoned. If you are buried under a mountain of debt, a sense of gloom will sometimes permeate your thoughts. That sense of gloom can turn into DOOM if you have fallen behind in payments.
Enter the Debt Collector
{cue scary suspense theme music here}
Dealing with tough financial times is hard enough as it is. When debt collectors start ringing your phone at 8 am and do not stop until 9 pm, your phone begins to resemble something with scales and sharp teeth!
When you pick up the phone and speak to whoever is on the other end, you will experience different types of collection efforts. People in the collection business often develop either a good cop or a bad cop persona.
Speaking to and repeating your current financial hardship to a good cop collector can be tedious, but otherwise not unpleasant. Speaking to a bad cop collector can be about as pleasant as running your nails over a chalk board repeatedly.
We’ve Got You Covered
We will continue to develop our coverage of this topic and add resources for dealing effectively with collection abuse. Debt Bytes will publish a resource guide for victims of abusive and illegal collection tactics that will be linked to this post and all future posts on this topic. Here at Debt Bytes, we will cover debt collection extensively:
You need to know how to be a winner in the collection game.
You need to know you have rights that protect you from abusive and illegal collection practices.
You need to know there are solid resources available to you for legal assistance if a collector violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (pdf doc).
Debt Collection Questions?
For now, you can:
Post your question right here in the comment section below.
Fill out our consultation request form to schedule a time to speak with an experienced CRN Debt Specialist.
Or call 800-939-8657 and press ext. 3 to schedule a consult.
CRN specialists have many years of experience assisting people with putting an end to their struggles with debt. Contact us to find out if we can help you.
Anyone looking into their options when dealing with debt that is too hard to handle on their own has limited options when looking for outside assistance. Your legitimate options will generally be narrowed down to bankruptcy, credit counseling and debt settlement.
You MUST do your research into ALL three of these options by discussing them individually with reputable service providers.
The core benefit when enrolling in a DMP is lower interest rates on the existing debts you have with creditors who participate in managed plans. This translates into lower and more manageable monthly payments.
When it comes to DMP’s and Credit Counseling Companies who support them, my experience is that not all firms are created equal. While the interest rate concessions that DMP providers arrange with your creditors are generally predetermined and will not vary from one service provider to the next, the service and attention to YOU, their client and customer, can vary greatly! The difference in consumer education and hands on tools that are provided as well as the care and compassion rooted in their management and employees can make all the difference in a positive experience and outcome!
When consulting with a credit counseling firm, you also need assurance that you are not talking with someone whose goal is to sign you up into a program that you are not suited for. Many of these firms want to beef up their numbers in order to collect a monthly fee and increase their fair share and grant contributions from creditors, without enough regard for how suitable a candidate you are for their program.
For these reasons and more, I recommend anyone gathering information about DMP’s offered through a credit counseling organization contact: Safe Guard Credit Counseling – Direct Dial: (800) 673-6993. I am sure there are other companies who offer similar services around the nation that could meet the high standards you will be greeted by at SafeGuard.
So why single them out for you to contact and schedule a free consultation?
I have been to their offices.
I know, like & trust their management team.
I have reviewed their counselor training materials.
Their fees are fair & their people care about assuring you can be a success when working with them.
SafeGuard is who I have trusted, and continue to trust, when referring people to find out if a debt management plan could work for them.
Disclosure: None. Consumer Recovery Network, Debt Bytes nor Michael Bovee receives any form of compensation for referring consumers to Safeguard.
We launched our newly redesigned Consumer Recovery Network website and this brand-spankin-new Debt Bytes blog this week! We have plenty of tweaks to make still, but things are shaping up.
I was editing the FAQ page today over at CRN (long overdue) and needed a break. I called a friend of mine who is quite knowledgeable and active with all things consumer debt and asked him for suggested additions (I hope to get him over to debtbytes for some guest posts in the future).
He emailed a brief list. I may later put some of these up on the CRN FAQ, but for now I needed another break from updating the new CRN site. Writing and editing site content knowing it is more focused on corporate image and branding can be a bit tedious. The debt bytes blog is where we at CRN can let our hair down a little (those of us that have much).
Anyway, here is the list of additional questions he sent me and my responses below each:
Do I have to sign an agreement to use your services?
Can I see it without giving up personal information?
All CRN members must complete and submit a Membership Enrollment Form prior to purchasing even our basic educational materials. Why? There is some pretty powerful stuff in there about getting out of debt, improving your attitude about money, planning for your financial future etc… Not everyone is ready for this stuff! There is just a little bit too much “truthiness” to it all. Someone could get hurt!
CRN Full Service Settlement Fees are currently 15% of what we save you – AFTER we save it. There are costs for our materials. We refer to this cost as membership fees. Membership fees are fully credited against any future success based settlement fees as an offset. Rather fair, if I may be so bold…
You even have a limited and life time refund policy! Check out the Truthiness Form for all the details!
How do I know you are legit?
There are a myriad of ways to check us out and compare us to other companies offering debt relief services:
Length of time in business.
You have many mainstream media articles and radio interviews about us which you can find links to on our press and media page.
Regulatory participation encouraging measures be taken to curb abuse in the debt settlement industry.
There is no shortage of members who have shared their experience working with us by writing to CRN. The CRN site has many customer quotes alternating throughout the pages.
We are also starting a new way for people to share their experience with us by having a testimony blog post here at debt bytes. This is where people can share openly and unedited (unless they use harsh profanity). How do you know those quotes are real? If we faked it and got caught it would be false and misleading advertising. We have a record of all. What if I am just saying this to get one over on unsuspecting consumers? Well, I just admitted to knowing it would be false and misleading to do so. That would be like…. fraud or something.
Also, Google (not to leave out all the other fine search engines out there – but I did) the name of any company you want to research, add a plus sign (no spaces), then add the words scam, complaint or review. Like this: Consumer Recovery Network+Review
I am sure there are more ways to complete your due diligence. You could call my mom, for example.
How do I know I can trust you?
This is a HUGE question! This is especially important given the track record of many companies offering debt settlement and the massive amount of negative media coverage surrounding the industry. The CRN business model is designed to build your confidence in us as well as the product & service we support – from day one. We will earn your trust.
Why should I listen to you?
Aren’t you just trying to sell me something?
You should listen to what our specialists have to say when we do a consultation with you because you could avoid making a huge mistake! One of which might be trying debt settlement on to see if it fits – this would include working with us!
We do have a product for sale. We do have services you pay for AFTER you see and like the results.
We DO NOT have sales people!
Our Specialists you consult with can often be found discouraging you from going down a path that would involve working with us – thereby paying us anything. I personally deter more people from trying to avoid bankruptcy through debt settlement than I encourage into it.
That’s a free service by the way, those consults. If you feel the consult was of value and are thankful, please consider donating a bag of non perishable food items to your local food bank in return. We know times are tough for you, but there are those for whom times are even tougher.
For those of you reading this post that have already talked to a debt Settlement company (or you call one later); call them back and pose these questions. They may not have as much fun answering them as I have.
If you have a question for us, you can click on ASK CRN (and get mostly serious answers too). And, as always, your comments are welcomed below! Break’s over. Back to work for me.
Edit: Merriam-Webster truthiness (noun) – 1 : “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” October 2005)
“Thank you for all of your help?! We have one settlement payment left to B of A and three other accounts to settle, but I feel like we are already done! It has been such a weight lifted off my shoulders and we owe you such a big 'thank you'! It got a little stressful there for awhile, but you talked us through it and now we are almost debt free! :)”
“ "It is so easy to get into the predicament that my husband and I have gotten into and I don't know what we would have done had we not heard your commercial on the radio on the way back from a convention last June. Our coach has been such a help in dealing with all of this and we appreciate being able to take advantage of your program. Thank you so much.”
We launched our newly redesigned Consumer Recovery Network website and this brand-spankin-new Debt Bytes blog this week! We have plenty of tweaks to make still, but things are shaping up.
