| Maybe you should take a step back and provide some information on what type of financial trouble your daughter is facing. Credit counselors often are not in a position to do any more for you to alleviate debt than you can do yourself with a few letters and/or phone calls to creditors, and as you have rightly pointed out, some are even scam artists. Making use of a credit counselor often puts a black mark on your credit report that is second only to bankruptcy, and often it's practically a toss-up as to whether the credit counselor might actually be worse. Lenders who see on your report that you've used a credit counselor know that you still have the bankruptcy card up your sleeve to use if you wish, and they also know that statistically a high percentage of people who use credit counselors ultimately file bankruptcy. As a result, you put yourself in a position where you are about the worst credit risk around. If your daughter is determined to use a credit counselor anyway, what I'd look for is an agency that's non-profit. Many "credit counselors" are nothing more than fronts for loan companies who are out to peddle another high-interest-rate "consolidation loan" on top of all the other loans the person has, and the last thing a heavily indebted person needs is additional debt. |
