Where Can You Go For Good Debt Advice?
There are a number of places where you can go for unbiased debt advice. Some of them are right in your city and others are available online. However – spoiler alert – it’s tough to get advice that’s totally unbiased because almost everybody is biased in favor of something except for some of the personal finance websites – more about them later.
The local sources
Let’s start with places within your city. Number one of these would be a consumer credit counseling agency–assuming there is one where you live – search for one here. These agencies are normally nonprofits and offer their services either free or for a very small fee. When you go to one of these agencies you will be assigned a counselor who will review all your finances and help you develop a plan for paying off your creditors probably in about five years. He or she will contact all your creditors and negotiate lower interest fees and get them to accept your payment plan. Once all your creditors sign off on the plan, you will send the agency a check every month–based on your payment plan–and it will pay your creditors for you.
Somewhat unbiased
Credit counseling agencies are fairly unbiased. However, credit providers such as credit card companies and banks support many of these agencies so they may be a bit biased in favor of having you pay off all your debts and at 100 cents on the dollar.
A personal banker
If your bank has a personal banker or some kind of customer support person, he or she might be willing to provide you with debt advice that, again, is only slightly biased. Like a credit counselor at a consumer credit counseling agency, your personal banker may be willing to go over all your finances and help you develop a plan for paying off your debts. If he or she is biased, it may be related to selling you a debt consolidation loan.
Online debt advice
If you go online and search, for example, on the term “credit card debt advice,” you’ll get literally page after page of results. These generally divide into two types. The first are non-profit organizations much like a consumer credit counseling agency, while the others are for-profit companies. You have to be careful which of these you choose as some of the for-profit companies that advertise themselves as if they were totally unbiased when what they really want is to sell you something.
Finance blogs
Personal finance management blogs and websites are generally good places to get unbiased advice. For example, the website The Motley Fool recently had a great (and unbiased) article about getting out of debt. The US Federal Trade Commission’s website has good advice about handling debt as does the Dave Ramsay website. You can also find good debt advice on websites such as Bankrate.com, Oprah.com and CNN Money. But you do have to be careful about even these blogs because some of them are cleverly disguised to look as if they are offering unbiased debt advice but really want to sell you something.
Can we help?
We admit that were biased toward debt consolidation. However, our debt consolidation providers are open and honest and will tell you straight out if they can or can’t help you. We offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee that we are so confident that we can help you become debt-free in a reasonable amount of time, that if you are ever unsatisfied with our recommended debt relief programs you can cancel at anytime without any penalties or fees.