If Your Credit Counselor Can Only Offer You One Solution, Find Another Counselor

    Having just completed my recertification as a Nifce certified credit counselor and member of the National Association of Credit Counselors, I noticed that the banks actually created there own definition of credit counseling. As amazing as it seems, if you tell a banker from the credit card industry that you are going through credit counseling, they think that you mean you have enrolled in a debt management program, which they control. If you say you are being counseled about the difference between debt management and debt settlement then the banker would comment that this is something other than credit counseling.

  It should be no surprise to anyone in the industry that the banks and some legislative bodies have managed to narrow the definition of what the real spirit of credit counseling is. It is about offering a solution which really meets a persons needs. People with debt problems have more needs than just the immediacy of getting rid of the debt. They have a need to live. In order to keep going there are certain other needs that must be met. What happens if they need a car and, of course, because of bad credit or lack of a cosigner cannot get one. What about credit restoration? Should the counselor tell them they have to wait seven years before the negatives on the credit report will improve? What about a credit card? Even a basic, secured credit card. It is very difficult to function in todays world without one credit card. You cannot rent a car, etc.

   Frankly, non-profit credit counseling conveniently ignores these issues. Why? Because they do not have answers. They can only offer you budgeting education, and a debt management program, or even sometimes housing counseling, but nothing else. The legislators need to take a deep breath and start thinking of credit counseling in different terms. Smart companies have chosen to operate as for-profit credit counseling/referral companies. This allows the counselors to offer a wide array of debt solutions through strategic alliances with partner companies which offer programs more suitable or specific to a clients needs.

  A client opting for a debt settlement program should know that the nature of the program is that the creditors will not be receiving money until it is time to settle the debts in one lump sum. So, this clients credit score, although 99% of the time already quite low, is going to need some credit restoration sooner than seven years. Is it possible? Absolutely. Many of todays more astute referral companies when enrolling someone into debt settlement will also enroll them into a credit restoration program. How about also offering a secured credit card and bad credit car loan.

   The wave of the future in the credit counseling industry is for companies which can offer this array of life saving programs to the debt oppressed to truly allow them to achieve self empowerment.

    If you would like to read more self empowering articles on debt reduction and debt relief, please subscribe to the newsletter feed from this blog by visiting: http://freecreditcounselingblog.typepad.com/creditcounseling/, the subscription is free and we never share your information.

Written By:
Steven Ciantro
www.americandebtenders.com
Certified Credit Counselor
877-766-2465

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