For many people, managing debt is a real challenge. Luckily, there are people who can help you to manage and pay off your debt. The people I’m referring to are credit counselors. The bad news is that not all credit counselors are the same. Some of them may not act in your best interest. For this reason, you need to find ways to separate the good from the bad. Once you know the ways of filtering out the ‘good’ credit counselors, it will become easy for you to find the right credit counselor for yourself. So, without wasting any further time, let’s take a look at the 5 ways to find the right credit counselor.
Know what you want
When looking for the right credit counselor for yourself, the first thing that you need to do is find out what you want from the counselor. Are you looking for general advice, simple budgeting, debt management, or bankruptcy counseling? Once you determined this, you can start searching for a credit counselor who ticks all the boxes.
Find out the services offered by the different credit counselors
When looking for a credit counselors, one of the most important things that you need to do is find out the services offered by the different counselors. It is true that debt counselling is one of the most important offered by a credit counseling agency. However, reputed counselors offer more than just debt counselling. So, look for counselors who offer budgeting and bankruptcy services in addition to debt management.
Determine how much you can pay for credit counseling
Let’s be honest, no one provides services for free including credit counselors. While your first session with them may be free of charge, you will have to pay for any follow-up sessions. For this reason, you need to determine how much you can afford to pay for credit counseling. Before working with a credit-counseling agency, inquire about their fees and costs. Ideally, you should get the prices or quotes in writing.
Find out about confidentiality
Most people who get credit counseling want to keep their information confidential. If you’re one of them then find out if the credit-counseling agency you’re thinking of working with keeps consumer information confidential.
Finding the right credit counselor is not easy. However, by using the 5 ways to find the right credit counselor mentioned above, you can make the task simple.