Company seemed very legit and as they are located about 20 minutes away from me i didn't even think to check the bbb or usacomplaints.com before doing business with them.
The plan was simple: have this company represent me when talking to my creditors to get my debt reduced and paid off quicker. My credit card companies would get more money faster and i would get out of debt for a fraction of what i owe and preferred financial services would get a cut off the top for their help in contacting their "executive contacts" at the credit company.
Sounds great right? Everyone happy...
Not quite.
I had specified that i did not want anything affecting my credit on this as my credit is very clean and i have worked very very hard to keep it that way. They told me not to worry, they would make sure the creditors get paid. So i started the process and gave them far more information and signed more contracts than i am proud to admit. A lapse of judgement on my part. I did not however fill out the power of attorney form as that set off some red flags for me.
At the start of this the rep told me to turn off my automatic payments and to not talk to the creditors and to forward any information to them, change addresses, change billing addresses.
A couple of days ago i get a call from one of my credit card companies saying the payment is late which has in turn put my interest rate up to 29% from 6% and added fees that put me over the credit limit. This will be reported to the credit score companies.
Well...! @#$.
I call the rep at pfs and explain whats up and she says yes there is some time between when we start and when the accounts close and they negotiate.
So basically, they wait until you are 90 days past due and then start working with the companies... How was this not supposed to affect my credit?
Oh and you can only cancel without penalty in 30 days. Thankfully i had shut off my auto payments before anything was signed so i caught on to this before i was past 30 days with pfs and have sent them a cancellation notice.
They say they will refund my 200 dollars within the next 5 days, we will see. If they don't i will just go collect in person.
So now i am out 350 dollars for the interest raise and fees and overage charges on my credit card... Money i could have used to pay some of my debt down and my credit score has dropped by quite a few points due to the late payment...
The best part? My credit card company says they never work with 3rd party debt companies, they wont even talk to them. How were they going to get anything reduced?
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