Customized Debt Relief through Tailored Debt Settlement ™
I call this state-of-the-art approach to customized debt relief Tailored Debt Settlement ™, and it provides all the advantages of Traditional Debt Settlement, while avoiding its pitfalls and drawbacks.
What do I mean by “tailored”? It means that you and I work together to customize a debt settlement program to your situation. There are two major parts to this process, so the tailoring works in two directions.
First, I analyze your specific list of creditors and debt balances. All creditors are not created equal. Some are aggressive in their collection methods, others are less difficult but still tricky, while others are routine to settle with. This analysis will lead to a per-creditor settlement estimate as well as a timeline for implementation.
Second, I review your financial status to determine whether you have sufficient resources to settle your specific list of accounts within 12-18 months. Remember, this is an alternative to Chapter 13, so I make the assumption that you still have some income and assets to work with. This part of the analysis will map your available resources against the timeline from the first part of the analysis.
The result is unique in the debt settlement industry — a customized debt relief program tailored to your specific list of creditors as well as your specific financial circumstances.Let’s take an example to illustrate the difference between Traditional and Tailored Debt Settlement™. Let’s say that you have $80,000 in credit card debt, are facing Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and see debt settlement as a better alternative.
Further, we’ll assume you have 7 accounts, one larger balance at $30,000, and the remaining $50,000 comprised of 6 accounts between $7,000 to $10,000 with various creditors.
The Traditional program would typically be quoted as relief from the pressure of unsustainable monthly credit card payments. Typical minimums on $80,000 of debt would be around $2,000 per month, a hefty burden.
The Traditional Debt Settlement outfit will tell you they can have you out of debt in 36 months for $1,667 per month. Too high? OK, how about 48 months at $1,250? That’s a huge difference to you of $750 per month off the $2,000 you’re currently shelling out each month, so you bite and take the deal.
Bad idea! How did they get to $1,250 per month? Take $80,000 chopped in half, so $40,000. The fee is 25% of the enrolled debt, so tack on $20,000 in fees on top of the $40,000 in settlements, for a total payout of $60,000.
Divide the $60,000 by 48 and voila, you have $1,250 per month, smooth as silk. The problem is that it is all nonsense!
At a pace of $1,250 per month, you’ll have built up $15,000 inside of 12 months. Surely the debt company will have settled some of the smaller accounts with those funds, right? Well, probably yes, so they can take the fees for settling those accounts!
But what if you get sued on the $30,000 account when there are no additional funds set aside to settle with? If this happens sometime in the second or third year of the program and you have to file bankruptcy anyway (to avoid wage garnishment), then what good did you do?
The FATAL FLAW in Traditional Debt Settlement Programs is that they are designed in cookie-cutter fashion around the TOTAL debt load enrolled. They fail to account for the huge difference in settlement practices between the major creditors. They also fail to take into account your true financial picture, by analyzing your assets and not just your income.
Tailored Debt Settlement ™ is different. It’s far better than the cookie cutter approach of basing a program on total debt. That approach makes no logical sense when every creditor is different in terms of percentages, legal risk profile, and timing for the best settlements.
Tailored Debt Settlement ™ provides a roadmap that the traditional approach just can’t give you. The first difference is that there is no quote for “monthly payments into the program” based on the total debt presented.
We start by reviewing your specific list of accounts and estimating what it will take to settle everything. Let’s say we know from experience that the $30,000 creditor will tend to litigate sometime in the period of months 13 through 18 of delinquency.
Knowing that this risk is out there on the horizon, we then have to analyze your resources to make sure a settlement on that debt can be covered BEFORE it gets out of control. So we make that top priority and allocate settlement funds accordingly. This might even mean postponing settlements with other creditors in order to conserve your available settlement money, rather than taking any deal that comes along just to book a fee.
The goal of my approach is to map your resources against the overall list of debts to be settled, but taking into account the variations between the creditors and the timing of their collection methods. We don’t just throw darts at a board the way the traditional companies do. We take careful aim and hit our targets.
It’s possible for me to provide this service because I’ve been helping people to negotiate their debts since 1997. I have seen virtually all of the variations on the general concept of debt settlement in action. I know what works and what does not work. The industry keeps changing so I have to change in order to keep up with current trends, and that’s precisely what I am doing in offering this new approach. Tailored Debt Settlement ™ is the state-of-the-art method for debt settlement. This approach incorporates all the knowledge I have gleaned from 20 years of experience at debt negotiation and a rich vein of data on the settlement practices of numerous banks, collection agents, and debt purchasers.
