In the recent days debt settlement and consolidation has become very popular. With the recent economic slump a lot of us have lost their jobs or have their salaries reduced by a huge amount. We all want to know what the legal ways out of this financial problem. Hence we are searching for a legitimate company who can guide us through the way. There are a number of companies advertising on the television or the newspaper. But how do we know which one of these is genuine.

There are a few steps you can take to find the best debt settlement company in your locality. First you must check if the company is a member of some reputable organization. Organisations like National Foundation for Credit Counselling (NFCC) or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counselling Agency (AICCCA) have standards which the companies have to adhere to before they can be awarded membership.

Once the membership of the company with either NFCC or AICCCA is confirmed, you will need to do a background check on the companies. Check how it has performed with its previous customer in the past. You can check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to see how many cases the company has handled and what its success rate was. You could get a opinion about the company by searching on the Google. You might want to keep off if there have been too many complaints.

You can make out a lot about the company from the services they offer you. A good debt counselling company will offer you services like credit counselling, financial planning and other debt management advices along with debt settlement and debt consolidation. It might be a good idea to not opt for companies who guarantee fixed results. No company can commit beforehand the amount of relief that they might be able to negotiate with the bank.

With these tips you might be able to keep fraudulent companies at bay.

Finding legitimate debt settlement companies is not that difficult but consumers must know where to look. It would be wise to utilize a debt relief network that will qualify the companies for you and ensure that they are legitimate and have proven themselves. To locate the top performing debt settlement companies in your state check out the following link:Free Debt Advice
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