Debt settlement companies can help, industry official says
JENNIFER McKEE Gazette State Bureau | Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 5:30 pm
HELENA — The head of a group that represents debt settlement companies — the businesses Montana’s attorney general recently warned people to be wary of — said she applauds Montana’s “pioneering” efforts to regulate the industry.
Jenna Keehnan, executive director of the U.S. Organization for Bankruptcy Alternatives, the Houston-based trade group representing the debt settlement industry, also said that, done right, debt settlement has helped many people become solvent who might otherwise have filed for bankruptcy.
“We’ve settled billions in debt so far,” Keehnan said of the industry, which has seen rapid growth in recent years.
Debt settlement companies now frequently advertise on television and radio.
Attorney General Steve Bullock cautioned Montana residents last week to investigate such companies before signing a contract. Debt settlement does not protect a debtor from lawsuits and it can hurt credit ratings, he said. Some people have tried debt settlement and paid companies thousands of dollars but have ended up owing more money than when they started.
His office has received complaints about some companies, including one from a Helena woman who gave thousands of dollars to one company, which did nothing for her. The woman and her family are now in bankruptcy.
Debt settlement works like this: Citizens hire a private, debt settlement company. Payment is usually a percentage of a person’s total debt; Montana law caps payments at 25 percent of the debt. Most of that money is paid up front. Debtors are told to stop making all payments to their creditors and allow their debts to be sold to a collection agency or be transferred to a third-party debt collection company.
At that point, Keehnan said, the debt settlement worker will negotiate with the collection company to reduce the total amount of money the person owes. The company may not always tell a person’s initial creditor that they are working for the debtor.
Throughout this time, the debtor must be putting money aside to pay back the debt, sometimes as a lump-sum settlement amount.
Typically, she said, the settlement company can get collection companies to reduce not only the interest and fees contributing to debt, but the principle, too. On average, Keehnan said, companies have succeeded in reducing debt by about 53 percent.
People don’t need to hire a debt settlement company to try this method for themselves, Keehnan said. Anyone can try to negotiate with a collection agency.
But debt settlement companies often have more success than an individual working alone for a couple of reasons.
“A consumer calling in to a creditor gets to a different department than a debt settlement company calling in to a creditor,” she said.
Additionally, many debtors have multiple credit cards and would face the prospect of negotiating several deals with various collection agents. That can take a lot of time, she said. A debt settlement company can do it full time.
Debt collection agencies are often willing to negotiate away some of the debt because they bought it from the original creditor “for pennies on the dollar,” Keehnan said. That means they’re not losing money even if they negotiate away thousands of dollars.
The burgeoning industry is not regulated in most states. Montana lawmakers in 2009 passed a law requiring companies to be licensed and regulated by the attorney general.
So far, only five companies have registered. Bullock said last week that being licensed by the state is different from being endorsed by the state as a good operator.
Keehnan said debt settlement does not protect consumers from being sued by their creditors. She said the industry would like to change that.
“If a consumer is participating in a legal and licensed program, why are creditors allowed to sue them?” she said.
Her group is also pushing for uniform state laws regulating the industry. She said debt settlement is not for everyone. But there are people who are too far behind on their bills to be helped by consumer counseling and are very near bankruptcy. For those, debt settlement can be a help.
But she also acknowledged that some debt settlement companies are “bad actors.”
“Just like any industry, of course there are,” she said.