How much can you benefit from credit counseling?

With credit counseling individuals can be helped in getting out of debt in an organized manner. Getting in to debt and not being able to pay has become quite a common problem these days. You may not always realize how to take care of your debts and may end up in great debt that you cannot manage anymore. Credit counseling is of great help at times like this.


History of credit counseling

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling was all that was known approximately a decade ago. They negotiated with lenders to get their clients lower interest rates and also design payment plans for them if they had fallen behind on their payments. Earlier it was the Consumer Credit Counseling Services, but today there is a lot of competition.


Survival of counseling services

The rise in consumer debt has given birth to a lot of new counseling services. There are companies that do good job in counseling. But again, there are companies that charge a huge amount as fees and take away a lot of money meant to be paid to the creditors. These companies target those individuals who are completely disappointed with the rate of interest they pay their creditors.


Credit counseling companies survive with the help of the money provided by the consumers. There are fraud companies too that disappear with the money provided by debtors without even settling their debts. These companies disappear so quickly that consumers cannot trace them as and when they realize about the fraud.


Need for credit counseling

Anyone who is in debt might need credit counseling and the number of individuals needing it seems to be increasing everyday. If you are in debt, are not able to pay your bills and are not current on your accounts, you surely so need credit counseling.


You might consider credit counseling when:


•    You are not able to pay even the minimum balance on your credit cards

•    You are not regular on your bills

•    Creditors and collection agencies keep calling you for the money

•    You have failed in negotiating with your creditors in working out a reasonable payment plan


However, you cannot benefit from credit counseling anymore if you are way too much in debt. There is a limit to the minimum amount your creditors will accept. So if you cannot go for credit counseling then bankruptcy may be the better option.