How Credit Counseling Works

The consumer credit counseling business is a huge industry in America, since the average American is a mere three paychecks away from facing huge, potentially annihilating financial difficulty. Each year, more than than a million Americans turn to credit counselors to seek to assist themselves recover control of their financial burdens. But just how the credit counseling business plant is a enigma to most consumers. What's involved when you engage a credit counselor?

It may come up as a spot of a shock, but the first thing you need to understand is that consumer credit counselors don't work for YOU! That's one ground their advertisements on television, radio, and in your electronic mail box shout, "Our services cost you nothing!" However, any business needs to derive income from somewhere, so if they're not charging you, who makes wage them? In truth, they work for the lenders. Here's how it works:

Regardless of what their commercials would have got you believe, credit counselors don't renegociate the overall amount of your debt--that is, the sum principal balance you owe to your creditors. Instead, they negociate with the assorted lenders to diminish your interest rates. For instance, let's state that you're paying somewhere around 18 percent on the charge card you desire aid with (some supplies still charge as much as 21 percent). A credit counsellor will reach the cardholder and negociate a lower interest rate--sometimes as much as one-half the original rate.

That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that your minimum payments will still be based on a 90/10 split, meaning that 90 percent of your monthly payment will still travel toward paying interest on the card. That means, as is the lawsuit with any credit card payment, it will be well deserving your piece to pay a small more than than the minimum each month, in order to whittle down your principal. It will salvage you important amounts of money in the long run.

But how can credit card companies go on to make money by cutting interest rates in half, and what do they have got to derive by doing so? The first ground is because they cognize that it's break to get something, which they'll make if you go on to pay them, even at a reduced interest rate, than to put on the line having you default on the full amount. The second ground is because, even at the reduced rate, the lender is still making a healthy profit. They have got borrowed that money at a significantly lower rate--sometimes as much as 66 percent less than the rate they'll be charging you. (That’s wherefore the financial establishments have got large buildings; they do huge amounts of profit.)

Credit counselors can save you money, there's no uncertainty about that. But don't be fooled into thought that they work for YOU, because they don't. In the end, credit card companies love credit counselors, because the counselors truly work for them. That’s wherefore you don't pay for credit counseling services. The credit card companies are happy to pay them for you.

Copyright © Jeanette J. Fisher.