A news account by reporter Pamela Yip of Dallas Morning News of June 23rd 2009, reported that the Debt Relief USA, Inc. of Addison, Texas, one of the major debt settlement companies in the nation and perhaps the most active advertiser at the time on the radio and online in the current debt solutions business, has just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy defense and has ceased operations, raising the issue of protection against debt settlement company and con debt relief programs.
Many debtors who were the company’s clients, have some money deposits pending with the company, and are likely to lose some, perhaps even all, of those deposits in the process of the bankruptcy, not to speak of the loss of some additional time that it would now take them in repaying their creditors the debt.
In its court filing with the Bankruptcy Court, the Dallas company, listing $4.65 in assets and $5 million in liabilities, said it is a target in several investigations by state attorneys generals and federal authorities.
Thus, this latest saga underscores, once again, the enduring and increasing danger and grave risks to American consumers who fail to become, rather very quickly, properly and adequately educated and informed about the quality and reliability of the debt settlement company they deal with in their debt resolution programs, or should even ever deal with, in the first place – a grave financial issue of how to avoid becoming a scam victim in the current American economic times that is the subject matter of a recent major comprehensive investigation conducted by a major New York-based online review organization.
THE NATURE OF THE UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANIES’ SCAMS
The fundamental problem is that there has emerged especially in recent times during these very trying economic times, many corrupt, scam debt relief companies in the debt settlement industry which prey upon consumers who increasingly find themselves unable to keep up with their credit card payments, often offering them false and unrealistic hopes, charging monstrous frees, and leaving them in a shoddier financial condition than they were before they went to the company. Consumers therefore need to protect against such unscrupulous companies. Such unscrupulous, fraud debt settlement programs and companies would often offer debtors, for example, debt settlement plans that are deceptive regarding the nature of the services they offer, such as falsely representing to them that they can reduce consumers’ credit card debt by as much as 75% just by negotiating with their creditors, when, in fact, such company has never had any experience in its past of achieving such a level of deal.
Indeed, as reported by this writer in a previous article in this medium, in response to this emerging credit plague in the nation, we’ve seen in recent months a spate of regulators and legal authorities in several jurisdictions across the country signal official concern and alarm that a growing number of companies which operate in the debt cures business today are essentially scam debt relief operations that are out to sucker an overburdened debt-ridden population in a bad American economy.
Only recently, for example, in early May 2009, State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, in kicking off a nationwide investigation into the debt settlement industry, subpoenaed some 14 debt settlement companies from across the country, and one law firm, as he announced that while “today millions of hardworking Americans are finding themselves imprisoned by debt, in response a rogue industry has stepped in offering consumers false hope and charging tremendous fees,” often making the financial condition of such consumers worse, he asserted, than they were before they went to the companies. Cuomo’s subpoenas, which revealed by its nature a broad investigation of the industry, include requests that are clearly designed to uncover the fee structures of the companies, the ways, if any, in which the customers might have benefited from their services, and what kind of debt relief the companies are actually providing their customers.
PROLIFERATION OF SCAM DEBT CURES COMPANIES IN RECENT TIMES
Certainly, not all debt relief or settlement companies are bad or deceitful. In deed, there are many companies in the industry that are very good and maintain the highest ethical standards, and high degree of professionalism and reliability in their services to customers. However, the point is that there abound in the industry today, many unscrupulous companies and individuals, by far more in number by the above-stated recent major study, that attempt to take undue advantage of debtors who are experiencing personal financial difficulties particularly during these trying economic times.
Thus, once again, strongly underscoring why it has become, for the American consumers in current times, so critically vital that he heeds the core call, and gets rapidly but properly and adequately educated and informed about the quality and reliability of the debt settlement company he employs to handle his debt resolution program before he (she) ever gets involved.
So, as a debtor or American consumer today, that central question is: how do you safeguard yourself with the debt settlement companies, or against becoming a victim of debt scam in these cures programs?
Recent Major Debt Relief Scam Investigation by Online Debt Options Review Organization
Perhaps most relevantly, is the fact that these increasing developments, of which the above-stated Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the Addison,Texas, company is only the latest notable expression, strongly underscores one closely related fundamental point – namely, the rather inescapable centrality and close relevance of the recent full-scale work of a major online debt relief investigative review organization, and its findings on America’s debt solutions companies nationally, and their rankings in terms of their quality, reliability, etc.
That debt investigation revealed, among other things, that a astounding proportion of companies, some 82.5% of the website-based operations used in the test sample group (165 out of 200), were basically debt relief SCAMS, while only 17.5 of them were of any legitimacy. And it further ranked some 12 companies nationally as the TOP DOZEN American debt relief companies of great quality, while singling out one company as the topmost and best, Number #1 debt relief company in America, having exceptional quality and superior attributes, and most reliable and reliable for the American consumer.
The Critical Finding and Lesson from this Debt Relief Options Review.
The most critical element of the research finding on these companies, is that the critical factors that make the difference are the following:
== the particular debt relief company you pick
== that, to avoid almost the certainty of having to incur additional financial losses in a debt settlement or consolidation program, or of falling victim to a debt relief scam at the hands of unscrupulous companies which now certainly abound in the industry, you need, FIRST and FOREMOST, to proactively search for and pick a right and reliable one,
== that to achieve this, all you have to do – must do – is engage in the proper and thorough research, using the right criteria.
In sum, the central point and finding of the said major online debt relief investigation, is that as a debtor seeking to resolve your debt problem through a debt settlement remedy, you can very much reap some major, positive payback by way of getting substantially reduced repayment terms with your creditors by employing a debt settlement company to assist you. But that for you to attain that, however, that depends almost wholly on one factor – namely, whether you’re able to pick the right and proper company, or the wrong or sham one to handle that your relief plan and action.
THE BOTTOM LINE: It is fundamentally up to YOU, the consumer, yourself. You can well safeguard yourself with a debt settlement company that you pick to work with and for you. You need not be a victim of debt relief scamming. Rather, armed just with the proper education, and using the proper criteria to make your choice of which company you pick, you can be – and should be – the victor in getting better debt settlement deals and terms with your creditors in today’s bleak financial and credit conditions, and better overall debt cures.
For more on the report of this comprehensive debt settlement industry investigation by the Honest Debt Relief Reviews firm, or a listing of the HDRR Top Dozen and the supreme Number #1 Best Online Debt Relief Companies in the nation,
Benjamin Anosike, Ph.D., has been dubbed by experts and reviewers of his many books, manuals and body of work, which dwell largely on self-help law issues, as “the man who almost literally wrote the book on the use of self-help law methods” by America’s consumers in doing their own routine legal chores – in uncontested divorce, will-making, simple probate, settlement of a dead person’s estate, simple no-asset bankruptcy, etc. A pioneer and intellectual and moral leader of the 1970s-based “you do your own law” movement and a lifelong vehement advocate and veteran of historical battles for the right of the American consumers to perform their own tasks in the area of routine legal matters, Anosike was one of the pioneers who fought and survived (along with many others of courage) the lawyers’ and organized bar’s stiff war of the 1970s and ’80s against American consumers and entrepreneurs who merely sought, then, to use, write, distribute or sell law-related self-help books and kits for non-lawyers to do their own law, upon the lawyers’ claim then of such being purportedly “unauthorized practice of law” or “practicing law without a license.” Anosike holds graduate degrees in labor economics and management and a Ph.D. in jurisprudence. Once characterized by a review of the American Library Association’s Booklist Journal as “probably the most prolific author in the field of legal self-help today,” Dr Anosike is the author of over 26 books and manuals (and countless number of articles) on various topics of American law, including 4 volumes on personal and business bankruptcy filing, in a lifetime of dedication. For more on the subject matter discussed in this article, or on how to get a low-cost, affordable bankruptcy filing, or the author’s other books and manuals,