BRAND NEW FTC RULES FOR CREDIT CARD DEBT RELIEF COMPANIES
To protect consumers, the FTC has just come out with some new rules that will be put into effect on October 27, 2010. The FTC believes that some debt relief companies are a bit less than honest when they charge people up front for services and promises that they might not be able to deliver on. This new ruling will be there to protect people from those advance fees and false promises.
Although there is nothing officially called “Obama debt relief”, the FTC is trying to help the many people who are already deep in debt and looking for debt reduction, debt counseling, and debt consolidation. These are the people that already have nothing and some companies are trying to lure them in with promises of being able to reduce much of their credit card debt and then not delivering on that promise. However, if you have already paid, it is near impossible to get your money back.
The new ruling will not allow any upfront fees or payments and you can only be charged AFTER they have successfully provided their service to you. These rules apply to for-profit debt relief companies and not to ones that are non profit and you can read about it here: FTC ruling.
People are in all sorts of financial trouble right now with credit card debt, foreclosures, loss of jobs, school debt, and little hope for the immediate future. They are looking for Obama stimulus grants, Obama back to school grants, and any other kind of Obama grants they can find.
At least now they won’t have to worry about being taken to the cleaners by any company that makes debt relief promises that seem too good to be true.
