20 months ago, my husband and I entered into contract with Freedom First Financial. At this point in time, we had debt because my husband had been laid off for a year and I was self-employed. We have two children, one who at the time was attending parochial school. They both now attend. At this time, we were paying our debt off regularly, on time, however, felt overextended due to fact our youngest would be starting school and we felt that after doing research on the issue, Freedom First Financial could help us pay off our debt quicker.
We entered into contract, was sent a packet and began payments to them. We paid two payments of over $600.00 and the rest (totalling $3,000) would be taken out monthly over the course of a year. Although we did have to pay, we felt that the overall savings and the fact that they would be helping us become debt-free sooner, was worth it.
We were given a fee schedule and told we would be debt free in less than three years (32 months to be exact), as of April of '07.in the course of events we were told that one debt would be settled at a little over $3,000 and the other at a little over $6,000.in December, we had over the amount to negotiate and pay off the first of the two debts.
I called in inquiring as to why it had not been settled and that is when the horrible experience we were about to go through began to unravel. I was told that we would never be able to settle for that amount, that my negotiator did not know why I was told this information and that my new amounts would be $8000,00 for one card and $12,000 for the other. No less. As of this point in time, nothing had been done in our favor by FFF. I was told I should consider bankruptcy. Remember, at this point in time, my husband and I both believed one of our two debts was to be paid off.
Before this happened, we were served with a summons and complaint by both creditors and the law firms working for them. I called and told them that this had me really nervous and they told me it was par for the course and would just prolong matters for us. They sent us a response, which we filled out and mailed into the judge, advising we were in no way, shape or form trying to get out of what we owed, we just needed to lower the amount and negotiate the interest, as it was hard times that got us where we were, not frivilous spending.
After speaking to the negotiator, I told her that I believed there was a judgment against us. At that time, I heard for the FIRST TIME, that they could put a lien on our accounts. Two days later that happened! I went in to buy a $3.00 cup of coffee and my debit card could not be run. I frantically checked my account and saw that every account I had had been cleaned out — my checking, the savings I had been saving for this matter, and our regular savings. They left a family of four, two being small children, a $2000 house payment and two tuitions, WITH NOTHING!
In the interim we were now talking to the creditors/law firms, which we were instructed to not talk to for 18 months. We then began working with them to pay off our debt. A total of almost $6,000 was taken out of our accounts. We came up with the other almost $3,000 to pay off the one debt, which would have been $12,000 and counting if we did not pay off in full. The other debt is at $20,000 — we could have paid it off for $12,000 had we had the lump sum (which is ridiculous), but we did not. We are now required to pay almost $600.00 a month for three years.
Because of this, we have had 18months of delinquency on our credit report, have gone from paying off our debts for almost $9,000.00 to almost $30,000.00 and have paid this firm more than $3,000.00. This is a total scam and has put us in a situation three times worse! We need to do something here — for our family and for others this has affected.
They have now sold to Nationwide Support Services and are being told they will drop us from their program, as we don't have the amount as set forth on the fee schedule. I explained to them that we don't have it because it was removed due to FFF, but they don't care. I don't need their help — I just need somewhere to get recourse. Please help us!
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