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To qualify for RISK FREE debt settlement, you need only have $10,000 or more in unsecured debt, a strong desire to become debt-free, and an understanding of why going bankrupt is not the answer. Even if you are current on your debts, we may be able to help you, but the program is best
for those who are already delinquent or overextended on their debts. You should be a U.S. citizen and not active in the military.
RISK FREE can handle any unsecured debt except those guaranteed by a third party institution or government agency. This includes credit card balances, revolving loans with retailers, deficiency claims for repossessed vehicles, and even unsatisfied judgments
in most situations. A list of qualifying debts » is available. If your debt does not qualify for handling as unsecured debt, check out our secured debt service.
secured debt »
Creditors will not tolerate being ignored forever. Even if the original creditor chooses to charge off your debt
(with all the damage that this causes your credit!), the right to collect will only be sold to another creditor, who will eventually
take the matter to court. Once you are sued and judgment is entered, the creditor can execute on the judgment. One way that creditors can do this is to garnish bank accounts, tax refunds and wages. Another way is to sweep in by surprise and seize your belongings and sell them (usually at low, distress prices) at an “auction”. That leaves you stripped of your belongings, and almost always still leaves a large balance due, which accrues more interest. Soon there is another lawsuit for that balance, and the process until you have nothing left, except for secured assets (home, car) reserved for other lenders. The process repeats until you are broke.
Meanwhile, creditors have raided your home and disrupted your life repeatedly. Did you Know? »
Bankruptcy seems like an easy out, and its promoters tout it as a “fresh start”. But it is a long, miserable,
costly process and it leaves serious long-term, even lifetime scars. Click on the link “The hidden pitfalls of bankruptcy »”
Debt counseling is helpful in some ways, because it makes you aware of the actions you took to get into your present situation, and even compulsive behaviors which perpetuated some borrowers’ cycle of debt. But even if counseling is effective, it only stops you from repeating your actions and making things worse. Some forms of credit counseling also assist you to get organized and make payments, but these services still presume that you will
pay the full balance, as well as certain amounts of interest. None of the counseling programs help you to REDUCE your debt.
If you approach your creditors, asking for concessions, most creditors will offer distressed borrowers some kind of “hardship” plan. Under these plans,
the lender will usually cut the interest rate, maybe even eliminate interest altogether, and start applying payments directly to principal. A new, higher minimum
payment is set, and the balance is paid off in three to six years, instead of being rigged to last almost a lifetime, as it is when the normal high interest
rate applies. The problem with these plans is that (1) the hardship plan still presumes that you will pay ALL of the balance, in full, which offers no actual
break besides waiving interest, (2) the new minimum payment is set even higher than the ones you have already had trouble maintaining, and (3) if you ever miss
a payment under a multi-year hardship plan, you are declared in default with no hope of redemption. At that point, you are thrown back under the bus of high interest, which is back-charged at the old high rate for as many months or years since your hardship plan began. At typical default interest rates of 29% APR compounded, this means your balance can nearly double.
This would be a financial disaster. Unless you are sure to receive a new, guaranteed and increased income stream, a hardship plan will likely fail.
Many debtors feel ashamed about their situation, and hold themselves entirely to blame for their debt crisis. This attitude comes from the best of intentions
– to be honest and face all of the consequences of one’s actions – but it makes many debtors feel guilty about asking for a settlement. Don’t let this sort of thinking deter you from exploring the modern, totally legal and ethical option of debt settlement. There was nothing wrong with you taking for granted the conditions of higher asset value and easier income
you relied on when you incurred debt. Now that dollars are much scarcer, your debt burden is much heavier. Settlement just evens the playing field
why settling debt is moral & just in today's economy? »
Critics of the debt settlement industry raise legitimate concerns about other firms’ habits of charging huge percentages, piling on extra fees
which they refuse to credit to their already-high percentages, failing to guarantee results, operating impersonally from distant states’ or countries’ phone banks, operating without the professional skills of a seasoned attorney, and placing the debtor at long term risk by handling all of the debtors’ payments and escrows for a period of years, so that the debtor has to worry for years if the firm will survive and follow through to the last promised settlement payment. All other debt settlement firms have most of these flaws,
and most have all of them. But RISK FREE has none of these defects, and invites you to compare Why Us? »
While other debt settlement firms take large fees up front and guarantee nothing to borrowers, RISK FREE does not get paid unless we deliver BIG RESULTS, meaning an offer from your creditor of close to 50% of your account. If we cannot achieve this goal, you do not have to pay us any percentage, and even your set-up fee is refunded in full.
That’s why we’re called RISK FREE! guaranteed results » With RISK FREE, you only advance a token fee to review and organize your debt profile, which is portable and can be used by you anywhere, even with a competing firm. Even that advance is credited on your total fee if you go on to settle debts with us, so there are no extra charges.
The best thing about RISK FREE is that we let you decide which debts you want negotiated, and how you want to pay them off.
We do NOT ask to run your credit reports or invade your privacy. You disclose the debts you want negotiated, and send information such as statements or legal papers regarding each debt you want to have us negotiate for you. There is NO RISK of us interfering with your credit profile, or getting entangled in any debts (or credit reporting about any debts) which you have not authorized us to negotiate. Similarly, as shown below, when it comes time to make payments, we keep our hands off your money and arrange for you to make your own payments direct to your creditor, so there is NO RISK that we will ever handle (or mishandle!) any payment funds. At RISK FREE, we give you total freedom
to select and disclose the debts you want negotiated, and to make your own payments on the debts we have settled for you.
Creditors may play hardball at first, and claim they refuse to negotiate, but this is almost always a smokescreen to turn away the first timid inquiry into settlement. Many borrowers, hearing this will never dare broach the topic again,
which is exactly what the creditors want: a borrower too scared to even think about asking for any discounts.
Creditors know that borrowers are distressed these days, and their operatives are told to discourage settlement the first time the subject arises, and keep notes on how often calls are made proposing settlement. But creditors also know that if the borrower drops the proverbial bomb and files for bankruptcy, the creditor will get zero, so there is always
an interest in avoiding this result and salvaging some partial payment from the debtor.
Eventually, almost all creditors will negotiate, to prevent insolvency and charge-off.
They may start with their own “hardship plans”
(see above) or other limited relief. But when RISK FREE follows up with demands for settlement, there can usually be a deal.
The negotiating process can get started in just a single day, and approval of settlements can take as little as a few days, or as long as a few weeks. Then, once you approve a settlement for an account, payments have to be processed. You start sending payments, first to RISK FREE for arranging the savings,
and then to your lender to comply with the negotiated deal. Payoff plans run a number of months, usually from 3 months to 2 years.
Usually NO. Once a credit card account is negotiated to a prospective settlement, the old agreement that allowed you to keep using it has been breached, and replaced with a new
contract. This new contract is to settle for a discounted amount, instead
of to authorize use the cards for the old original credit amount. Because you have now made a settlement deal instead of a contract for credit usage, the credit line is totally and permanently closed
RISK FREE sees many problems for innocent consumers who rely on debt settlement firms to make their settlement payments. First, the consumer has to trust the settlement firm to handle huge amounts of payoff money, for all of their clients, honestly and carefully. This is already a tall order, when some of
the firms in this industry handle literally millions of dollars at any given time (thousands of dollars for each of several thousand of their clients).
The RISK of a computer error or glitch in that kind of setting compounds with the RISK of dishonorable or careless handling of funds by some nameless,
faceless functionary within one of those firms, to add up to big worry for consumers relying so heavily on the settlement firm to perform payoff schedules perfectly. Next, the consumer has to sweat out all of the long months and years of their payment plan, to be sure that their settlement firm will stay solvent and survive to the time of their last payment. There is always the RISK that a settlement firm runs into its own financial troubles, for whatever reason, and that it will fail to survive to payoff date.
Finally, the consumer has to worry that payments are being properly posted and tracked by the creditor, as they are made by the middleman settlement company.
Unless someone is constantly nagging the settlement company to forward receipts, there is a RISK that payment documentation, needed to prove compliance with settlement terms, may be lost.
RISK FREE solves all of these problems. We keep our hands OFF your money. Once we negotiate settlement of your debts, we make arrangements for you to make your
own payments direct to the lender. No RISK of dishonest or careless middlemen handling your valuable funds. No RISK of computer errors or glitches which only come
to the attention of the lender or middleman, without your knowledge, to be thrown up in your face months or years later. No RISK that your settlement depends on a middleman who may not even survive to the payoff date, to make each required payment up to the end.
No RISK that receipts for payments made will be lost in the files of a middleman..
You pay direct, and keep your own records! That’s why we’re called RISK FREE! Why Us? »
Usually YES. The whole purpose of the settlement process is to stop creditors from taking legal action against you, or to freeze that action if it is already under way. Most creditors mark their files “settlement pending” once a deal has been reached to settle a debt, and the creditor’s attorneys are instructed not to waste the creditor’s money with legal fees for a dispute that is already resolved. In fact, the prospect of saving on legal fees is one of the reasons why creditors are willing to consider settling many debts.
Occasionally, an account that was subject of a settlement is still pursued in court, either for the first time with a summons and complaint, or through later stages of collection, such as garnishment or asset seizure. If this happens, it is almost always a computer error or a paperwork mix-up, which can be halted or reversed when you contact the court and the lender and remind them that a settlement is already in place, with copies of its terms.
If you are exploring debt settlement, you have likely been struggling with payments and are probably delinquent on at least some accounts. Your credit rating is therefore less than perfect even now, and any settlement plan which discounts balances to pay them off will have at least some initial downward pressure on your credit score. This is because the settlement remains unreported until it is complete, and you are treated by the creditor as increasingly delinquent until the settlement is complete. But settlements which are paid as settled reflect as neutral entries on your credit and are almost harmless to a score,
especially when compared to the write-offs and charge-offs for earlier, unsettled balances
The credit consequences of debt settlement are also described in detail tax/credit consequences »
In some cases, the IRS treats forgiven debt as income. But there are major exceptions, especially for taxpayers who
carried a heavy debt load. Your tax expert can advise you, but the good news is: In many cases, forgiven debt can be excluded.
tax/credit consequences »
Debt settlement is a process of building credibility with the creditor. The debtor must strike a delicate balance between seeming hopelessly unable to cope with the debt load (verging on filing bankruptcy, and thus threatening to zero out the creditor’s asset) and
and seeming confident of the ability to make regular payments to pay off a settled amount
as newly promised. This is hard for a debtor to pull off, because of chronic inability to pay the original, smaller payments regularly, let alone new, larger ones.
It is especially hard for the individual debtor to make a smooth proposal sound credible, after already being stressed by the complicated balancing act
described above, and by the debtor’s own emotional involvement in the crisis Finally, most creditors’ operatives are trained and steeped in ways
to
discouraging debtors from proposing settlement for discounts, and instead divert the debtor to an in-house “hardship plan”, t a credit counselor, or
to some other solution which works towards a 100% balance payoff. When a debt settlement firm enters the picture, a calm professional who is not swirling
in the emotions of the debt crisis can handle the negotiating process, say the right words and get much better results. Creditors are much more ready and
willing to deal with trained representatives than with irate, uptight or nervous customers directly. With RISK FREE, you get all the advantages of working
through a settlement firm, without our competitors’ serious flaws why us »
RISK FREE handles only qualifying unsecured debt (qualifying debts ») under its guaranteed results program. Still, RISK FREE has the capability of providing other forms of help with certain secured debts, such as mortgages, commercial loans, equity lines and car loans. On these loans, because the collateral is secured, the creditors will seldom concede a large discount. But many will negotiate more modest forms of relief, or at least arrange for new terms designed to reduce or eliminate delinquency. This eliminates the danger of foreclosure or repossession, ridding you of all the stress about those loans.
Each type of case is considered for particular services, customized for each new client. These can be discussed in a free phone consultation, reviewing proposed prices before any agreement is reached as to how we can help.
If you ever have another question for RISK FREE DEBT SETTLEMENT, CALL
24 hours a day, 7 days a week to our special RISK FREE HELP LINE, by dialing
(734) 776 FREE (3733)
A caring customer service specialist should be able to answer questions, or refer you promptly to the Debt Negotiator for next-day service and a free phone consultation.
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