I'm new to this forum, but today Family Credit Counseling showed all their colors to me in stark detail.
We signed up with Christian Debt Solutions in Aug '05 with a large debt load, but wanted to reverse our course before we got to the point of really struggling with the payments.
We were sold the first month to FCCC without any notice, and then spent the next 3 months of seemingly endless hours, sitting on hold trying to find out what was going on with our accounts. They claimed Wilma, but we had Rita and nobody cut us any slack.
We were getting calls at all times of the day wanting to know where the payments were, and when FCCC DID start answering the phones they couldn't tell me who was getting paid, and who did we need to catch up on?
The lame Monthly Statements are ludicrous. They don't give you any specific info on who actually got any money, only who was SUPPOSED to get the money.
Other than a month of hurricanes, we paid $1320/month on 13 accounts, but only about half of them would ever get a payment each month. Then the late charges, finance charges, and ultimately over-limit charges began accrueing steadily.
We tried to catch up the late accounts when we could, but FCCC already had the extra money meant to pay down the debt. When the payments were late, the creditors jacked up the interest rates to 25-30% which started a snowball effect.
After 7 months, only 3 accounts out of 13 had received a proposal from Family Credit Counseling, and they were the smaller accounts that didn't hurt or help us appreciably.
Today I called and told them that after 7 months, it was evident they had breached their contract, and to hold all further dispersion of monies, and refund all funds leftover.
I was told that since I hadn't told each creditor to move the due date 15 days later, I had breached MY contract and no money would be returned. The fact is that they are 30-60 days late on 7 of my accounts, so 15 days either way is pretty much a moot point, even with MY math.
I informed her that any money they retain will be spent on legal fees, and she out-ran even my mouth to tell me yeah, call the AG, the FTC, the BBB, whatever.
This kind of scumbag company that leaches off those in need, that have put their families welfare in their trust, will get theirs someday. The Bible is clear on that, but if I can return some of the grief to this bunch by spending my last nickel on a really T'd off lawyer, speaking my piece about them to the BBB, the Federal Trade Commission, the Texas Attorney General, and all the financial forums I can find in my off-time, I think that will be time well spent.
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