They can work, but usually do a little damage to your credit rating. Because usually what they do is take over the debt for you and stop the interest and you basically pay them, when that happens it looks on your credt report as you have gone through third party collections making you an undesirable candidate in the future for loans and so on... My suggestion is to get to YOUR bank and explain the situation and try for a debt consolodation before you go to a third party. The bank will usually request that the cards be cancelled or the limits to be reduced once they do a consolodation loan but is well worth it if you are in as far over your head as it sounds. Another way of doing a debt consolodation is to secure it with property depending on wheather you have enough equity in your home to do so. The bank will usually do an appraisal of the property and then once the amuont of the property is valued they wll take the value of the home minus 20% and then minus any outstanding mortgages and so on of the property and that is the magic number of a home equity loan and the great thing about that is you can extend the amortizaton out to 25 years which means lower payments!

It is possible for these companies to help you get good credit back and cut down on the payments. There are three bits of bad news. The first is that you can do a lot of what they will do for you all on your own. The reason they make so much money doing it for you is that most people with huge credit card debt are just disorganized enough not to be able to maintain their own credit restoral schedules. The second is that what they are going to do for you is quick and dirty. Your credit score will still take years to clean up. What the Credit Counselor can honestly but quickly do is set up payment plans on debt settlements. This will not erase the debt completely, but it will end the collection demands and phone calls. The settlement is still just a partial payment of the debt rather than completely paying it all off, so that debt will sit around on your credit report until you arrange to pay the whole thing off. And the third is that just going to one of these companies will end up on your credit report and will adversely affect your credit: "he needed help from a Credit Counselor? he must not be able to handle his credit at all!" Check with the Better Business Bureau first though. Some Credit Counselors advertise more than they can legally provide. Also, see if you can find a counselor who might consider giving you a "guess" based on general information about your situation. The advantage of this, rather than them starting a file on you, is that his guess won't end up on your credit report. If they start a file and then can't do a darn thing for you, the record of your visit is still on your credit report. I mention this only because I happened to get the same courtesy from a Credit Counselor myself, and my situation turned out to be outside what the Credit Counselor could do. I avoided a negative "visited Credit Counselor" note on my credit report as a result. You may want to see if Congress has left any options for you in Bankruptcy. I know that the laws have been changed to prevent many people from declaring Bankruptcy, but your situation may just barely fit into the new limited law. Bankruptcy means most of your debt is erased, and your credit score gets a new clean slate in just ten years, which for a $100,000 debt might be a shorter time period than what it would take to achieve good credit again on your own. Finally, if you own your own home, consider a home equity mortgage. Despite the Fed repeatedly slashing interest rates, credit card companies have been *raising* credit card interest rates. A home equity loan would have a much lower interest rate than *any* of your credit cards, because the home equity loan rate would be based on the Fed's very low interest rate. If you could transfer your credit card debt over to a home equity loan, you would do more to reduce your credit card debt than any Credit Counselor could do.

Many are a scam. The best way to get rid of it is to take a pair of scissors and cut them up. Sit down and look at your budget. Start cutting that. Get a second job. Call the card companies and talk to them. Some are willing to negotiate a lower rate. But please cut them up first.

hello. First check out the agreement you have with your credit card company. Look up for something called PAYMENT PROTECTION PLAN. in certain circumstances such as lost of job or death, injury, hospitalization the credit card has to cut your debt in half or completely cancel the debt. I know this by experience. Please don't go to debt consolidation you are going to end up paying for more and those who said they can get you wipe off the debt will damage your score permanentely. Look at your credit card statements. if you see this PAYMENT PROTECTION or PAYMENT SECURITY plus a charge of 100 or even 200 monthlly (they usually charge 1 cent per each 100 on the total balance owned) then it means you are protected. Just call them. and Good Luck I know is hard to live like this. And trust me is not your fault usually is all because of the interest rates

I don't know what your finances are outside of that but, honestly, if I had that kind of debt on my income there would be no way in hell I could ever dig myself out of it. I'd find ways to protect my assets and file for bankrupcy. The thought of paying a debt like that off makes me want to vomit.

Check out www.123applyforcredit.net. There are some ways of helping to fix or improve your credit.

Hi there, I am sorry to hear you & your wife have a $100,000 credit card debt. However, here in the UK, we can eliminate the credit card debt legally. I also understand there is a different process called "novation" which enables a customer to write a letter to their credit card company with certain wording, enclosing a cheque for say £10.00 once the credit card company banks your cheques, they have accepted your £10.00 as full and final payment, in principle this end your agreement with the credit card company. This is a process which is not well known and CLEARLY IS NEVER MENTIONED IN THE FINANCIAL PRESS. Here in the UK, we have a different set of rules/laws. We have the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA 1974)which protects consumers from being taken advantage of by Lenders. There have been some changes in CCA 1974, with changes in 2005, 2006 & 2007. As a result of some of these changes, there are many credit agreements which are flawed (do not reflect the changes of law), as a result some are deemed to be unfair, or unenforceable. With these cases, action can be taken against those lenders and damages claims made, which can extend to all payments made, all interest payments made, and excess charges. The damage claim can be larger than the amount outstanding or even the amount borrowed. With a successful claim, you can indeed look to have your balance written off, or a substantial part refunded. The charges for one company in particular are £495.00 irrespective of the size of outstanding balance, and a reduced fee of £175.00 for each additional credit card. These fees are fully refundable if the claim is unsuccessful! As far as successes are concerned, I understand the process takes around 6 months to complete, and there have been several hundred completions in Dec 2008 from a service which was only launched early 2008.

People who default on their obligations ultimately lay their irresponsibility on all of us who ARE responsible, which includes probably 99% of the people. Pardon me, but I have no sympathy for your self-inflicted "wound" and your causual response to it.

Go here - http://www.daveramsey.com/ The only way out of debt the right way is to work hard and pay it off. That site might help you find a way to do it. Good luck!!

Pay! You and your wife were such greedy, irresponsible bastards that charged up $100,000 worth of shoes and clothes but now want the rest of us to bail you out too? I hope they come after your ass and even take away your car so you have to catch the bus for the rest of your life and learn a lesson

Work harder, start to pay, call the credit card inssuer try to negociate. Sell things that you don't reallly need in your life. Live withins your means. People who run away from their debt make a country goes bancrupt. Do you live in USA ?

Without a doubt, Dave Ramsey. Follow his program, you can do a search on his site for a class that is close to you. It works if you do it!!!

Dayum - 100 stacks - WOW! What in the world would someone spend $100,000 grand on? I mean really - sounds to me that your issue isn't your debt - it's that void your trying to fill with buying and having things. I'm so damn glad I'm happily living at the poverty level. The least of my worries is having to have things I can't afford. But yes - I think all them - "get rid of debt" deals are a huge scam.

What they do is viewed as being the same as bankruptcy. It will destroy your credit for many years to come. If you really want to be out of debt, cut up your credit cards. Trade down on your cars if you can. Set a budget of what you really have to have to get by. Don't spend a penny that you don't have to spend. Sell what you have and get a wreck that runs. Pick your smallest bill and start paying double on it to try to pay it off as quickly as you can. Then start on the next smallest. It will take a while, but you can do it.