If you have found yourself in a seemingly endless pile of debt and have started to think there is no hope, you are the ideal candidate for debt consolidation services. There is hope, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel -- but when you are selecting your debt consolidation program, you need to make your choice with great care. There are hundreds of different options for debt consolidation today, and the fact is that they are not all created equal. Some debt consolidation programs are designed primarily to turn a profit for the people who own the company: In such programs, the focus is not necessarily on the client or on eliminating the client's debts as soon as possible, but the focus may instead be on collecting a monthly fee (often a very significant fee) from the client. This monthly fee will always be taken before the debts are paid, meaning that you may be paying a lot less money towards the actual debts than you think that you are.
For example, if you are using a debt consolidation company that uses a for profit business model, you may send in $200 per month to the company for debt repayment. However, you might actually only be sending $150 of the $200 towards your actual debts: The rest of the money may be taken by the company since they are a "for profit" company and this is what the company was designed to do -- Make money off of your misfortune.
A non profit debt consolidation company works in an entirely different manner however. The non profit debt consolidation company will provide you with the debt consolidation services free of charge -- they are not in this business to make a profit but are rather in the business of helping people to reduce and eliminate their debt. The goal of the non profit debt consolidation programs is to help you to achieve freedom from your debts, and to live a debt free life.
You might be curious about how exactly non profit debt consolidation programs can stay in business since they are not collecting money from you to stay afloat. How do they pay their employees and keep their business running? Non-profit debt consolidation companies are able to serve people due to their funding sources, which include donations from individuals, donations from creditors, and even government grants.
The role of non profit debt consolidation programs is to serve as a go-between for you and your creditors. The non profit debt consolidation program that you choose will be contacting each of your creditors to arrange for a reduction in the percentage rate, in the amount of late fees, in the amount of over the limit fees, or even for a reduction in the total amount owed in some cases. The credit card companies are very often willing to make these deals with the non profit debt consolidation programs because this is one way that the credit card company can be assured of recovering at least some of the money that is owed to them.
If you have found that you have accrued far too much debt, if you have found yourself struggling to meet even the monthly minimum payments on your credit cards, or if you have so much debt that you do not even know where or how to start paying it all off, you are probably an excellent candidate for a non profit debt consolidation program. Keep in mind that when you join such a program that you will be doing so with the aim of becoming completely debt free within a certain time period: For example, within three years or so you will become debt free after following the assigned debt repayment plan.
For anyone who feels bogged down with their debt, or any person who thinks that those ever-increasing interest rates, late fees, and finance charges will add up to a hopeless situation, debt consolidation programs are there to change that way of thinking. Before you make the decision to become debt free using a non profit debt consolidation program, be sure that you are willing to commit to the full term of the contract, and that you are truly ready to become debt free -- for life!
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