Debt elimination scams

There are always diverse viewpoints on any topic and this is no exception. For that reason I have chosen to use my blog to explain what you have asked me to explain.
The explanation is so lengthy that it cannot be posted in the Richard Cornforth-strategies Yahoo! egroup and you will probably have to come to this blog itself to read the entire article.

I know very little about Debt Relief of America at all. If they are the ones that advertise so much on TV they are not a debt elimination company at all. according to my understanding. They are a debt relief company and as is the case in so many other instances, it is essential that we understand the differences in the definitions of words. I understood the need for that at an extremely early age, long before I started school as a child. I could already read at an advanced level before I started 1st grade. We didn't have kindergarten back then. Nobody ever heard of kindergarten in 1936. Dad would put me on his knee as soon as I could understand words and before I could even speak good and he would read me the newspaper funnies every morning and explain them to me. That's how I really learned to read. He would put his finger on each word and say the word slowly, phoenetically and it wasn't all that long before the time came when I would ask him what a word meant and he wouldn't tell me. "Go look it up in the dictionary", he would say. And I did. He didn't just exactly like all the words I looked up that way either. (LOL)
He had to explain that there were words in the dictionary that little kids just weren't allowed to say in public. (LOL)

Now then, back to the subject. There is a huge difference between debt elimination and debt relief. Debt relief is much closer to bankruptcy in nature than debt elimination is. Debt relief means that for a fee a company or individual will attempt to negotiate with the creditors to get them to agree to a settlement for as much less than the full amount owed as they possibly can. They can usually get at least 10% off the full amount owed and quite often much, much more than that. But the consumer still has to pay at least some portion of the original debt. Most of these "recognized" debt relief companies have pre-arranged percentages that they can get knocked off the consumer's debt. For instance, they might have an agreement with Capitol One which says that Cap1 will reduce the amount by say 50% if the consumer has been in default for maybe 4 years or more and only by 40% if the consumer has been in default for 3 years and so on down the line. The debt relief companies get to keep a small amount on top of that and then they charge the debtor according to how much they have saved the debtor. So, in truth, they are nothing more than collection agencies in disguise.

Wolves in sheep's clothing in other words. The FTC is not happy with the vast majority of these debt relief companies because of the fact that they goof the deal up and the consumers end up in worse trouble than before due to the fact that the payments do not arrive at the creditor's offices in a timely manner, they usually take their money off the top before any payments are made to creditors and the result is that the consumer pays a huge amount of money and still ends up in trouble with the creditors.

Debt elimination is an entirely different scheme. Debt elimination means the total elimination of all or most debts owed by the consumer. According to the government that is not possible except through their bankruptcy courts or in those rare instances where the creditor themselves forgives the debt for whatever reason. Debt elimination is supposedly impossible for any company or private party to accomplish by any legal means. Of course, most of us who subscribe to such forums as Richard Cornforth's Yahoo! egroup known as "Cornforth-Strategies", and many others know that there are ways to eliminate consumer debt that are not necessarily government approved.

The methods taught by so many debt elimination companies out there are not only plain wrong but are actually nothing more than scams designed to bilk the unwary out of large sums of cash leaving them in much worse shape than they were before they started trying to work themselves out of debt. The list of such scam artists is so great that a whole volume can be and actually has been written listing them all. Yet they multiply so fast that nobody can keep up with all of them. It is the same with the debt relief companies.

It is also the same with many of those signs we see nailed to utility poles everywhere claiming to buy houses quickly. They will get you out of your mortgage by buying your house. They make an offer to the bank who is on the verge of or in the process of foreclosing on your home whereby they buy the house at a greatly reduced rate and pay the bank cash for the house. You agree to it because it means you can move out owing nothing but also you get nothing for your equity in the home which was going to be the end result anyway. They buy the house for just a shade more than what it would bring at a sheriff's sale and you get the shaft. They sell the house at a huge profit.

Debt relief, Debt elimination, and now "buy your house quick" scams abound all over the nation and the internet. All they do is end up costing the consumer huge amounts of money for nothing leaving them in much worse shape than before. Credit repair scams also abound all over the nation.

The real truth is that nobody needs a debt relief program, nobody needs a debt elimination program, and nobody needs to hire a so called "credit repair company" because they can do all those things themselves and usually almost all for free.

You can eliminate your debt but not by using some "trick" or devised artifice, but rather by actually learning the law and how to use it to your benefit. But you must understand that it isn't easy nor very fast. You almost always need some level of one-on-one help from someone who is knowledgeable about the law or from a competent consumer advocacy attorney who can either take your cases to court for you and win or who can lead you by the hand and point the way in your studies.

One must be very careful when reviewing and considering the use of any "strategy" or the advice of those who espouse some theory or idea. The age old saying that "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is" applies every bit as much today if not more so than ever.

You should never trust anyone's interpretation of the law or what it says or what it means without checking it out for yourself. To do that you need to become familiar with your local law library and learn how to use it. You should also learn that the only reliable information about law is to be found in the Annotated Statutes. The annotated statutes teach you what the courts have said that the law means and how it is to be applied.

Richard Cornforth teaches that you should always use the Annotated Statutes.

Richard_Cornforth teaches how to do things the right way and he decries such scams as "debt elimination" and so do his information providers such as Norm Redhead, Vinny Tecchio, Mark Mays, the late Dan Meador, the late Pat Patton, myself and others.

I do hope that my commentary on debt relief and debt elimination companies will help guide you on your way to resolving your debt related problems in an ethical and lawful manner.

Bill Bauer AKA CREDITWRENCH