Another problem to debt settlement is that if you have a money problem and are miss your monthly payment they will boot you out of the program at once. They will also increase your interest back up and the creditors will not let you back on for around one year and perhaps even longer. This could put you right back to where you started from, if not in a tougher situation.
You then make one monthly installment to the credit counseling firm and they then pay each one of your creditors on your behalf. The drawback to this choice is even though they lower the APR on your credit card accounts you could still pay back as much as 130% of what you currently owe. I do not think that debt relief is supposed to be a very hard thing to get involved in.
Another problem to debt settlement is that if you have a money problem and are short on your monthly payment they will kick you out of the program at once. They will also raise your interest back up and the creditors could keep you off the program for a minimum of one year and on some occasions even longer. This will put you right back to where you began, if not in a tougher situation.