“Hi, I am curious as to why you opted for a debt management program through a credit counseling and debt management agency.
Much of what a debt management company does only involves contacting your creditors and negotiating alternative repayment plans with reduced interest rates and fees that you can actually do it yourself.
Most creditors will be eager to agree with lower repayments and reduced interest rates as they don’t want you to declare bankruptcy.”
I have been asked by a few US and UK blogging pals why I enrolled in a DMP while I could actually do the debt management myself.
First off, the banks and creditors in my country are more heartless and money sucking than those banks and creditors in the US or UK.
Before I enrolled in the
Most creditors agreed to reduce the finance rate from 18% per annum to 15% or 13%. The lowest interest rate was 9% per annum and it’s from a bank that I had been making my monthly credit card payment more consistently.
Guess what the creditor counselor was able to negotiate with the banks? The interest rate was reduced by many points, between 6% and 7% by most of the banks and only one bank insisted on 13%.
The low interest rate is a huge help since I had been paying 18% or more, and had also been late on more accounts. The reduced APRs can save me thousands of dollars in long run.
As for lower monthly payments, NONE of the banks wanted to reduce the monthly payment from $150 or $200 to $50 or $60 when I did the debt management myself. But when it’s the credit counseling agency that did the negotiation on behalf of me, they were willing to reduce the monthly payments.
You may think that it’s because I pay enrollment fee and a monthly service fee to the agency that it’s easier to get things done. No. Free of charge.
I am in a free debt management program and agency set up by the government to provide financial counseling and debt management to individuals as well as financial education to help individuals take control of their financial situation.
In the US, you have non-profit and for-profit debt management companies that charge initial fee and a modestly monthly fee, but in my country there is only ONE credit counseling and debt management agency and its debt management program is free of charge. 
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