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Debt Relief Scams Hurt Those Needing Help Most

In tough economic times, many families may need help with their finances and there are many legitimate agencies that can guide them over the rough spots. Unfortunately, there are also many companies with debt relief scams looking to take advantage of someone else’s misery to make money. Promising to reduce personal debt while keeping creditors at bay, they perpetrate their debt relief scams on those who can least afford to lose their money.

Some debt relief scams are outright fraudulent, who take money from unsuspecting people and never pay a dime to creditors so that the person is out more money and the creditors are still seeking payments. They will usually set up a fake storefront or internet portal that disappears almost as fast as it was started. Names change almost weekly and the ones in charge do their best to remain anonymous.

Typically, debt relief scams will accept payments only in the form of cash or money order and usually refuse debit or credit cards due the tracking capabilities. They push to get the money in cash noting that with the business they are in dealing in currency allows them to cut costs as well as keep their service fees to a minimum.

Companies May Keep Half To Cover Costs

With some debt relief scams they will contact creditors and inform them they are working on your behalf and negotiate lower payments. You will have the benefit of making one payment to them and in turn they will send payments to your creditors. However, their service fees for mailing checks for you may be as high as 50 percent of your monthly payment.

While your debt is being reduced debt relief scams are getting rich by charging you as much as all of the combined creditors are receiving. For example, if you have 20 creditors and are paying the company $200 per month the company is keeping $100 for itself while your creditors are receiving $10 each per month. Depending on the total debt amount, it can take a long time to pay off the bills.

Another of the big debt relief scams involves offering to sell you information about where to go for government grants for debt relief. By visiting sites for the U.S. government or state governments, it soon becomes apparent there is no such thing as a free lunch from the government. There are no such things as free government grants to help with personal debt, and the company is selling you a CD and a monthly subscription for you to use the information on the CD to apply for grants that you most likely will not qualify to receive.