In article <38128aF5gt7vbU1[at]individual.net> ,
"Brian" <brianwolters[at]gmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

Yes and yes. The secret plan is that many of the non-profit
credit counselors are funded by the credit card companies to
get early warning of problem customers. Once you go to one,
you likely will no longer be able to get any new credit. That
makes it nearly impossible to do any type of re-fi or consolidation
on your own.

The counselors often have a plan where they do the consolidation,
and you make payments to them. The scam is that they often
skim off of your payment, and change a high up front fee to
set it up.

The other secret is that if you call the credit card company
and ask for a concession, they will most likely not take you
seriously. You normally have to be many months late before
they will believe that you are on the verge of bankruptcy.
But if a credit counselor calls up, they know that their
people have pre-qualified you, so they do work with them.
They know that the counselor is trying to extract the max
they can out of your monthly budget, which is the best that
the card company is going to do in most cases.

Any charge-offs, write-offs, or write-downs will go on
your credit for 7 years. In addition, some creditors
will send you a 1099 form for the value of the charge-
off (since it is effectively income to you), so then you
get a huge IRS bill for taxes.

-john-

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John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
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Hello,

This may be slightly off topic but these companies that say they know
"secret plans" that credit card companies have in place to help
consumers..are these scams or plans that can hurt your credit?

Thanks,
Brian