The Debt Consolidation Cure FINAL€¦ · For most people the debt consolidation cure isn’t a new loan, its options like a debt roll up plan, credit counselling, bankruptcy or debt

THE DEBT CONSOLIDATION CURE

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© Copyright 2014 Richard Cooper, Total Debt Freedom Inc.


Lead Author

Richard Cooper, President & CEO, Total Debt Freedom Inc.

Contributing Authors

Paul Heenan, Vice President

Andrew Cooper, Operations Manager

Justin Persaud, Customer Service Supervisor


Copyright © 2014 by Richard Cooper, Total Debt Freedom Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, faxing, emailing, posting online or by any information storage and

retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher

For more information visit:

www.totaldebtfreedom.ca or call us at 1-866-833-1992

For additional resources visit www.amazon.ca to purchase “Enough is Enough:

The DIY Debt Settlement Guide Your Creditors Don’t Want You To Know

About by Richard Cooper


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Table of Contents

Introduction ...................................................................... 4

Chapter 1 - The Truth About Credit Card Debt ................. 5

Chapter 2 - The Credit vs. Debt Tug of War ...................... 8

Chapter 3 - Your Debt Relief Options .............................. 11

Trustee - Bankruptcy............................................................11

Trustee - Consumer Proposal ..............................................12

Credit Counselling .............................................................. 13

Debt Roll Up Strategy ..........................................................15

Debt Consolidation Loan .....................................................15

Secured Debt Consolidation Loan .......................................16

Unsecured Debt Consolidation Loan ...................................16

Debt Negotiation .................................................................17

Chapter 4 - Next Steps .................................................... 19


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Introduction

A debt consolidation loan is the solution most Canadians seek when they are drowning in credit card

debt. It’s such a sought after solution to debt that people Google the phrase “debt consolidation loan”

over “avoid bankruptcy” by 40 to 1.

The interesting thing is almost all of the people seeking a debt consolidation loan are at a stage where

they are on the cusp of bankruptcy.

By definition a debt consolidation loan is a loan that combines debt obligations into one new debt with a

single and simple payment. It is the ultimate cure IF people approached it sensibly and before it’s too

late.

For most people the debt consolidation cure isn’t a new loan, its options like a debt roll up plan, credit

counselling, bankruptcy or debt negotiation.

Very few people actually qualify for what a debt consolidation loan really is by banking definitions.

I’m a collection industry insider in Canada and have been since 1994. I’ve been the manager of every

major collection portfolio issued by Canadian credit grantors and government.

I worked in collections agencies until 2003, and since then have been helping people consolidate their

debt. During my time in collections I was responsible for the recovery of over 820 million dollars in debt.

Everything from student loans to retail credit cards to collecting debts from people that deposited

empty envelopes in an ATM and made a cash withdrawal.

I’ve also helped thousands of Canadians resolve millions of dollars of debt for pennies on the dollar

through debt negotiation when people pay back on average $0.38 for every $1.00 the owed.

I’ve seen it all.

In this book we will examine what your options really are and expose some truths about credit and debt

relief options that many credit card companies would rather keep from you.


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Chapter 1 - The Truth About Credit Card Debt

Before we get into your debt relief options, you need to understand some truths about the debt you

owe.

This book isn’t about how to deal with mortgage debt, or anything that is secured by a piece of collateral

like a car, boat or home. This is about unsecured debt; the nightmares created by credit card debt.

What’s the difference between secured and unsecured debt?

Unsecured debt has no collateral (like a car or home) that a creditor can take if you aren’t making your

payments. So, as a result, the interest rate is often quite high. The interest rate on my Visa is 19.99%

and many other retail credit cards charge around 28.8%.

Unsecured debt is obscenely profitable for creditors.

Canada for example has 5 big banks, and in 2012, at a time where world economies were down in the

dumps our biggest banks reported record profits. In the 3rd quarter alone profits were up 45% from the

same quarter the year prior.

This story isn’t unique to Canucks. Australian banks were reported in 2012 to top global profit rankings,

with Canada ranking second, and the US ranking third.

Make no mistake. Your creditors are doing very well at the game of issuing credit.

So who is the real deadbeat? You, the person looking at their statements seeing the balance they owe

never come down regardless of how hard you try?

No, you aren’t the deadbeat.

The real deadbeat to credit card companies is the person that uses his credit card every month, pays it

off in full, never carries a balance or pays interest, collects their points, and flies around the world for

free.

That’s right; you are not a deadbeat at all! They only start to make real money off people that carry a

balance and pay interest; its consumers that never pay interest that are of little value to credit card

companies.

They are waiting for the day when they are a late payer and charged interest, or need a car loan,

mortgage, or overdraft so they can make some serious money of these folks.

If you have been paying interest, and other fees, they have made plenty of money off of you, so don’t

worry about how they “feel” about you, if they are your friend or if they will ever extend you credit ever

again. They don’t care about your financial wellbeing. Creditors only care about their profits.

Trust me, creditors will extend you credit, and I’ve seen them do it over and over again.


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A 2011 survey by The Strategic Counsel found that 64% of Canadians pay their balance off in full every

month, while only about half of American households do. 2014 statistics are getting even worse.

The trend is clear; creditors are making more and more money off interest.

Effective September 1st 2010, Canadian banks were federally regulated to include in credit card

statements information that included, and I quote, “Time to repay your balance: the credit card issuer

must show you an estimate of how long it will take to pay off the current balance in full if you pay only

the minimum required payments every month.”

Take a look at an example of one of our clients “time to pay” disclosure above.

I take two issues with this disclosure, 1) creditors aren’t forced to tell us the TOTAL COST of the

payments and 2) the disclosure is far too small on credit card statements.

I’m serious; on my statement it’s a small font and most people I talk to, don’t even notice it on their

statements. This image above only takes up about 2% of the real estate on your credit card statement.

I’ve been banging on this drum for years now.

Cigarette companies are forced to disclose to you the health cost of their product. In Canada, tobacco

companies dedicate about 50% of the packaging to health risk labels that talk about everything from

birth defects, to erectile dysfunction.

Why aren’t creditors fully disclosing the financial costs of just making minimum monthly payments in

the same fashion cigarette companies do?


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Just making minimum payments on a credit card balance is the worst thing you can do for your financial

health. Debt really is dumb.

But it’s not all your fault. Creditors are not very transparent when it comes to the true cost of credit

card debt and that cost is insanely high if you follow the plan your creditors seem to want you on. If you

just made your minimum payments, most people would pay more than 5 times what they charged and

take an average of 30 years to pay it off.

So buying that sexy 70” flat panel TV for $2,500 today and then just making minimum payments could

cost you over $10,000 and 30 years to pay it off.

The other issue I have with making just minimum payments, is how creditors apply them to what you

owe. Look at this disclosure below in a credit card statement:

This creditor applies your payments in this order:

1) Interest

2) Fees

3) Past due amounts

4) Future fees/transactions.

It’s clear as day that this creditor is paying fees and interest first with every payment made. The strategy

is designed to keep you carrying the balance, and applying money to areas that earn the bank revenue

first.

Make no mistake: carrying a balance forward and just making small payments on credit card debt is

dumb.

For years I’ve been helping people with their financial nightmares, and one thing I’ve found in common

with everyone I’ve helped is that they didn’t intend to get into a financial train wreck. For many it was a

case of bad things happening to good people: a divorce, loss of work, or some bad decisions.

The point I’m driving at here is that “life happens”. Nobody just wakes up in the morning and says to

themselves, “Right, I’m just going to screw my creditors and not pay my bills anymore”.

So you are stuck on the merry-go-round of debt? Spinning round and round going nowhere? Not seeing

your balances come down when you throw some money at them? You put energy into something that

goes absolutely nowhere. Well, you have a choice to change that path, and it’s such a simple and easy

one. Get off!


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Chapter 2 - The Credit vs. Debt Tug of War

There is one overwhelming problem people face when making the decision to get off the merry-go

round of debt. In fact, I’m going to tell you right now, that this is the single most important decision you

will need to make before you get started.

You are going to need to stop caring about your credit rating if you are serious about eliminating debt.

If you are drowning in debt, you’ll need to forget about all the stories creditors and the media have been

drilling into your head about how important your credit rating is.

It’s all blah, blah, blah and designed to keep you under the control of the creditors.

Let me tell you a story about Kelly. When I met her, she was at or over her credit limits and owed over

$41,000 in various credit card debt. She wasn’t sleeping at night and on the verge of bankruptcy.

She was a separated single mom, with two young kids aged 4 & 8. She had been struggling for the past

3 years to put a dent into her credit card debt. Almost all of her payments went towards interest, and

quite often she was missing payments or giving creditors a payment every other month.

Her creditors were threatening her regularly with collection activity, legal action and damage to her

credit rating.

When I met Kelly she was more concerned with what would happen to her credit rating, than getting on

a new plan to get out of debt.

What she was doing was clearly not working for her, and she was stuck on the merry-go-round of debt.

Let me put it in perspective. All that Kelly’s credit card limits got her was over $41,000 in credit card

debt. So what is that credit worth?

I asked her if she posted an ad on Kijiji to sell her credit, what would she get for it. Her answer:

“Nothing.”

The truth was that the credit she valued so much was worth zero and nobody would buy it.

Let me put it this way, if your house was burning down and the fire department was tromping all over

your prized rose garden, would you really care?

No, of course not! Credit is much like your rose garden; it can be regrown within a year.

If your home burning to the ground, that is a much more important issue, and that’s what your debt is.

The problem is that most people put too much emphasis on credit that has ZERO value to them.

Once you realize that getting out of debt trumps everything else, including your credit rating, you are on

the right path.


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Let me take you back to 2006 when I was working very closely with the mortgage community. Almost all

of my clients were getting referred to my company by mortgage agents.

I saw thousands of credit reports during this time and made it a point to become an expert at

understanding them.

We had booths at all the major mortgage conventions, so when I had the opportunity to create a

training course for mortgage agents that was worth a continuing education credits, and maintenance

towards their accredited mortgage professional designation, I jumped at the opportunity.

Little did I know that collecting the data was going to prove that what I was doing in debt negotiation

not only had ZERO negative impact to credit, but it actually IMPROVED credit ratings.

Let me give you an example.

Above you can see the credit score is 462, and below the same clients credit score rose 112 points in less

than 14 months to 574.

So the score improved considerably, and here is the kicker: not all debts were settled, in this case there

was only enough money available from the mortgage financing to settle about half of all the debt our

client owed. The rest of it had to be taken care of 14 months later with another round of refinancing.


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Many people don’t know this but negotiating debt, using my method, is far kinder to your credit rating

than bankruptcy and credit counselling.

Please. Don’t worry about your credit.

Keeping your credit score well over 700 is desirable if you want to borrow money at the best rates

possible, and it’s considerably easier than you think to maintain good a good credit score once you get

out of debt.


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Chapter 3 – Your Debt Relief Options

When it comes to debt, you’ve got several options to consider when looking for help. They include:

bankruptcy, credit counselling, debt consolidation loan or debt negotiation.

I’m a debt negotiation professional and advocate, so obviously I have an interest in my debt relief

program but it wouldn’t be fair to just talk about my approach to credit card debt.

Here is how your other options work:

Trustee - Bankruptcy

American money guru Dave Ramsey summed up bankruptcy when he said “Bankruptcy is a gut-

wrenching, life-changing event that causes lifelong damage.” I don’t agree with everything Dave says,

but he sums it up well.

It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, going bankrupt demonstrates complete financial failure to

anyone that looks at your credit report.

It’s a public process, and requires your creditors, your credit report and in many places, the public, to be

made aware of your bankruptcy filing.

Bankruptcy is embarrassing, and something most would prefer to avoid like the plague.

With bankruptcy you essentially hand over your debts and your assets to your trustee, but here is the

kicker, a trustee is actually an agent for your creditors. So even though you pay them to get you out of

debt, that are actually working for the people you owe.

So they follow government rules that ensure your creditors receive as much of your estate (assets/cash)

as possible to pay off your liabilities (debts).

To go bankrupt in Canada, you must be experiencing difficulty in meeting your payment obligations, and

be insolvent; meaning you must owe more money than what you own in assets.

Also depending on where you live, professionals licensed to administer a bankruptcy filing also offer an

informal proposal.

Your trustee is also responsible for filing your taxes to Canada Revenue Agency while you are under their

care. You lose your tax refund for the year of bankruptcy and all prior years that are not yet received as

your trustee must also distribute that money to your creditors too.

If you are a first time bankrupt then the timeframe to being discharged from your debts is about 14

months. It is a reasonably fast way to get out of debt.


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Trustee – Consumer Proposal

The biggest difference between a consumer proposal and bankruptcy, is that a consumer proposal

usually takes 5 years to complete, and you keep your assets, in exchange for monthly payment to

creditors.

But here’s the thing: the consumer proposal still looks like a bankruptcy on your credit report to

creditors. It’s no better than bankruptcy, in fact, I think it’s worse.

Many trustees in Canada will try to sell you on a Consumer Proposal; they tell you it’s more ethical, or

that it’s a form of bankruptcy “lite”.

A bankruptcy has a much shorter time to being discharged from your debts; as such the payments are

usually higher than a consumer proposal. I can see why a trustee would encourage more consumer

proposals. It creates income for them over 5 years rather than the less than 2 years of income they

would get from a bankruptcy.

The truth is a consumer proposal is less work for the trustee, and it’s more profitable for them to keep

you in debt for 5 years.

In Canada a trustee earns 20% of the funds distributed to your creditors in a consumer proposal. So the

more money they can find in your estate to pay your creditors, the more money they make monthly.

There is no incentive for a trustee to save you money if they are compensated as a percentage of what

goes back to your creditors.

Trustees are a court appointed agent to creditors, not you. So regardless of if you file for bankruptcy or

a consumer proposal they have a conflict of interest.

A conflict of interest usually arises when a service provider takes its fees from “party A” (you the

debtor), but represents the best interests of “party B” (aka your creditors).

The trustees sell consumer proposals as a bankruptcy alternative, but because it takes so long to get

debt free, it’s really worse for you and just more profitable to the trustee. Remember, because it takes

nearly 5 times longer than a bankruptcy, it does more damage to your credit.

Trustee Summary – Dealing with a trustee is arguably the worst thing you can do to your credit rating

and should be your last resort, and if you do deal with a trustee your fastest way out of debt will be with

bankruptcy.

Advantages – Collection calls stop, wage garnishments stop, creditors can’t sue you.

Disadvantages – Trustees work for your creditors, not you. Bad for credit. You must be insolvent.

Trustees are invasive to your life as they take control of all your assets, tax returns etc.


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There are two situations that I can think of where I would encourage dealing with a trustee for

bankruptcy:

1) If you have almost no assets, but you owe a considerable amount of debt. So let’s say your debt to

asset ratio is greater than 10:1, meaning if you owed $50,000 and had $5,000 in assets, then bankruptcy

is absolutely worth looking at since you have very little to lose and your payments would be low.

2) If you owe income tax debt there is an advantage to a trustee as you cannot effectively negotiate with

Canada Revenue. As an aside, you can effectively negotiate with the Internal Revenue Agency in the US.

Credit Counselling Often referred to as a debt management plan, credit counselling does not reduce the

amount you owe, all they do is reduce the interest you owe and work out a plan that will take about 5

years to pay off your debt.

There is no reduction in the principal owed and the damage it does to your credit is very similar to filing

for bankruptcy or a consumer proposal.

Credit counselling services have a long history in Canada dating back to the 1930′s. In theory it was a

good concept because government helped to pay for the service for those that needed it.

However, when government started to cut back in the late 1980′s on funding a void needed to be filled

to pay the bills for the services.

Can you guess who stepped up to the plate? If you guessed credit card companies, you are correct!

Nearly 70% of funding for credit counseling comes from the very credit card companies you owe.

So, are there problems with non-profit credit counselors and do they appear to have a conflict of

interest like trustees?

It would seem so.

The issue with credit counselling today is that many are structured as “not-for-profit” and organized as

charities. The thing is, nobody works for free; they need revenue from somewhere, and it’s the

creditors you owe that are footing the bill.

In Canada, credit counsellors have a board of directors, and on each board of directors sit some

creditors governing the activity of the credit counsellors.

Make no mistake, credit counsellors’ work for the creditors, and not you.

All Canadian credit counselling companies have banks, credit unions, or some other finance companies

on their board of directors.

If this isn’t a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.


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Industry insiders consider credit counsellors a “kinder, friendlier collection agency for the banks”. I

cannot think of any circumstance where I would recommend a debt management plan by a credit

counsellor to anyone seeking help with their debt.

With credit counselling there is very little in it for you, but plenty in it for the banks and credit

counsellors. In Canada for example, credit counsellors earn up to 23.5% of payments you make to your

creditors, plus they may charge an additional 10% fee to you.

In a 2013 press release, a British Colombia based non-profit credit counsellor released details for their

“contribution sources,” that is, where their revenue comes from to pay for operations, rent, staff etc.

Only 23.3% came from what they call “clients”, which is you, the person in debt. 73.3% of the money

came from banks, finance companies, and other creditors. See this chart below:

If you call any major bank and tell them you are having problem paying your credit cards, they will likely

refer you to a credit counselling company if they can’t resolve the issue with you themselves.

Let me tell you about Jane. She owed around $30,000 when she showed me her credit counselling plan,

which would have cost her in total about $36,000 and taken 5 years to finish. After 1 year she had just

about enough of it, and wanted a real plan to eliminate her debt faster.

We got her debt free for $19,860 (including our fee) and it happened in 28 months, instead of the 60

month plan that she was on before.

Jane saved over $16,000 and 32 months of her life by walking away from her credit counselling plan.

I really struggle to find any advantages to credit counselling. Maybe they do some good community

work here and there, but that’s really to distract you from their source of funding.

Sure, they help with budgeting, and yes you will eventually get out of debt at some point. But let’s call a

spade a spade here. They are puppets for the credit card companies, have a high total cost, and damage

your credit as bad as bankruptcy or a consumer proposal does.


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Debt Roll Up Strategy At the end of the day, debt is just a simple math problem wrapped up in some

emotions. It’s really just a matter of spending less (cutting back useless expenses) and paying as much

as you can monthly on the credit card debt.

Financial experts like Dave Ramsey and Gail Vaz Oxlade talk about this option often. Whether you track

your spending with jars, or envelopes; it’s essentially the same thing.

If you can change the equation, you can change the outcome. A debt roll up strategy is a good option if

you can pay considerably more than the minimum payment.

A great friend of mine, Sam, did this with about $25,000 in credit card debt he owed. His banks gave

him way more credit than he could handle, and he found himself drowning in debt. He didn’t want to go

bankrupt and he wanted to pay what he owed as fast as he could.

Sam cut back on unnecessary expenses and started habits like carpooling, packing lunches every day and

living with roommates (I was one of them) and stuck to an aggressive repayment plan. Sam paid off his

debt in about 5 years, although he admits it cost him a lot in interest and stress by paying about much

more than the minimum required payment. He got his financial life together in due course.

Cutting back expenses created the cash flow he needed to pay off the debt.

You don’t need a money guru’s book or expensive program to follow a debt roll up strategy. Figure out

what you owe, get a piece of paper and write it all down. Then figure out what you earn and spend over

a normal month.

That’s called a budget and will show you your cash flow. If you can cut back on crap (take on

roommates, get a cheaper cable package, etc.) to free up cash flow, then you have a debt roll up plan.

That’s it, that’s all. If you can find the money to pay about 30% more than your minimum payments,

without a doubt, do it. The higher your payments are, the faster you will get out of debt. Also, always

tackle the debts with higher interest and larger balances first.

Advantages – You stay in control, little to no negative effect on credit.

Disadvantages – Interest costs are too high unless you can pay 30% more than your minimum monthly

payment.

Debt Consolidation Loan – Most people look for a debt consolidation loan as the cure to debt.

Consolidating your high interest credit cards into one, simple, low payment seems like a great idea to

many people, especially when you are drowning in debt, but it’s a play that really needs to be made

before you start to have trouble paying your minimums.


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For those on the verge of bankruptcy, it’s a pipe dream. If you cannot manage your credit card balances

right now, who in their right mind is going to loan you more money? In most cases, you usually cannot

borrow your way out of credit card debt.

There are two ways to get a debt consolidation loan. Secured, and unsecured.

Secured Debt Consolidation Loans – Only banks offer these at a reasonable rate, so start and end with

your bank.

It’s a simple approach. See an account manager the next time you are at the bank and tell them you

would like to consolidate all your credit cards into one payment. Ask them for a debt consolidation loan

and see what they say.

If they can help you, it will be a secured loan against your house such as a mortgage, or a line of credit so

you will need to be a homeowner with equity to go down this road.

What is equity? Having equity usually means that your loan-to-value (LTV) is about 70% or less. So if

your house is worth $500,000 and your current mortgage totals $275,000, that’s a LTV of 55% so you

may be in a position to borrow against your home to pay off your credit card debt in full at a lower

interest rate.

Most banks also want to see a good credit score over 700.

Keep in mind that if you can get approved to do this, you are trading off unsecured debt (credit cards)

for a secured debt (mortgage) at a lower interest rate.

The reason the interest rate is lower? It’s because the creditor can take your house if you aren’t paying

regularly. So be well aware of your situation and any future challenges before you go down this road,

and ensure you can afford to make the new payments over a long term.

If you can afford the payments, and the interest rate is much lower than what you are paying on your

credit card interest rates, then it’s a good idea to borrow against your house to pay off your higher

interest debt.

This scenario is the ultimate debt consolidation cure.

Unsecured Debt Consolidation Loan - The reality is that the majority of people seeking a debt

consolidation loan are going to pay 30-35% interest because they aren’t homeowners, or they don’t

qualify for mortgage refinancing to pay off their debt.

Many people don’t look for a debt consolidation loan until it’s too late. With an interest rate of 35% it’s

practically loan sharking, and you might as well deal with the mafia.

There are high risk lenders that do offer debt consolidation loans, but I strongly discourage anyone from

using high risk lenders.


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There is ZERO point in trading off credit card debt at 19.99% interest for a 30% unsecured consolidation

loan. Not only is the interest rate high, but many of these types of lenders look for you to guarantee the

loan with something. Anything! They will ask for a car, boat, or even a wage assignment.

Wage assignments are the worst; payday loan companies use these when you borrow money against

your paycheque. If you can’t pay, they take it off your next cheque. It’s a brutal cycle.

When looking for a consolidation loan for credit card debt, start and end with your bank. If your bank

cannot consolidate your credit cards into one easy payment, for a lower rate, forget this option.

Advantages – If you can consolidate with you bank at a reasonable rate, and payment, do it. Now!

Seriously stop reading and get it done. Your perfect solution awaits you.

Disadvantages - If your bank won’t help you this option is very expensive.

Debt Negotiation - A debt negotiation company can reduce your debt by 50-75% and you can be totally

debt free within 3 years. For some people it can even be as soon as 60 days from the start date if you

are sufficiently behind in your payments and have access to a lump sum of money.

95% of the people that have their debt negotiated for less do it over a 3 year plan; but because it flexible

you can settle up at any time if you can raise a lump sum.

Your principal AND interest is negotiated down to less than half of what you owe so your total cost to

get debt free is always CONSIDERABLY less. It’s similar in principal to a trustee’s consumer proposal, but

it offers considerably more flexibility, savings and the debt negotiator is compensated when they save

you money.

Debt negotiation is the ONLY debt relief option that advocates for you! Banks, car companies and

corporations have all had their “bail outs”; debt negotiation is for the consumer.

The bottom line is negotiating debt is quicker, cheaper and does less damage to credit. Plus you are in

control. Not your creditors.

There are two things you need to know about debt negotiation: 1) you will get some collection calls 2) a

small percentage of people get sued.

Getting sued might seem scary, but it isn’t a big deal.

The whole point of a lawsuit is to force a settlement on the debt, which is the point of what you are

doing anyway. Also you’d be surprised how many creditors don’t have the original credit card contract

on file to show to a judge or missed some other critical matter.

How do I know this? We routinely settle debt in the court system for our clients. My company

TotalDebtFreedom.ca has a paralegal defence plan to negotiate debt with our legal professionals on the


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small percentage of people that get sued so we’ve seen this over the years but would require an entirely

new book written by our licensed Paralegal.

This is the only debt relief option that isn’t registered to the credit bureau like what a trustee or credit

counsellor does, so there is little to no effect on your credit rating. In fact, as mentioned earlier, a debt

negotiation approach actually helps improve your credit as you settle the debt.

There is no conflict of interest with a debt negotiation plan. The company is paid by you, therefore only

works for you to get the best possible results.

Using a debt negotiation company isn’t for everyone. Creditors really don’t want you to save any money

and would rather have you on a credit counselling plan because it’s more profitable to them so they will

do everything they can to discourage you from negotiating with them.

If you are a “do-it-yourselfer” you can do this yourself if you have enough time and resources. Get my

book titled: Enough is Enough; The DIY Debt Settlement Guide Your Creditors Don’t Want You To Know

About from amazon.ca, it’s all broken down for you in there.

Your biggest advantage to hiring an expert will be the access to their list of contacts, relationships and

the fact that you remove the emotional component by hiring an expert. Creditors do yield in the hands

of a skilled negotiator.

Since debt negotiators advocate for you and do not get paid by your creditors, it comes with a fee. Your

cost is usually 16% of the debt enrolled. At the end of the day, the negotiated settlement you pay, plus

the fee is considerably less than you owe on your debts today.

Advantages – 50-80% debt reduction, affordable monthly budgets, fast, and easier on your credit. Get

an advocate that works for you.

Disadvantages – Some collection calls, threats of legal action.


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Chapter 4 - Next Steps

The debt consolidation cure is simple, if you have access to equity in your home, go to your bank now

and see what you can do with your current situation. Do not procrastinate, do it now.

If that doesn’t work out; a debt roll up plan is a good idea if you are paying LARGE monthly instalments

on your debt; just make sure you are putting a big dent in what you owe monthly. Aim for 30% more

than your minimum payment.

If you are well in over your head, and owe a TON of debt, with no assets, go bankrupt. Unless the

trustee can prove it’s a better option for you do not buy the consumer proposal if the trustee sells it.

Just say “no” over and over again until they can sell you on why a consumer proposal might be a better

choice for you over bankruptcy.

For many people the debt consolation cure is not a new debt consolidation loan, it’s simply a debt

negotiation strategy. You simply get off the merry-go-round of debt, get an advocate in your corner,

get on a new plan you can afford, and get debt free faster and cheaper than any other program.

To get started on a debt negotiation approach, get your credit card statements together and visit

TotalDebtFreedom.ca and ask for a free quote or just call toll free at 866 833 3055.

If debt negotiation isn’t for you, we’ll be honest about it, and send you in the right direction, for free!

Live Totally Debt Free!

www.totaldebtfreedom.ca

Documents

The Debt Consolidation Cure FINAL€¦ · For most people the debt consolidation cure isn’t a new loan, its options like a debt roll up plan, credit counselling, bankruptcy or debt