Please let us know whether your bank refunded.

And as always, make sure you document ALL your business communications by fax / email or record the calls. Scammers will always be liars.

A portal for “debt providers?” What have you been smoking, James?

“The website is owned and operated by a large company in Los Angeles that works accordingly with State and Federal Regulations for Debt Arbitration.”

What’s the name of the “large company” and what exactly are the “State and Federal Regulations for Debt Arbitration?”

In fact, there are NO regulations for “debt arbitration” as it doesn’t exist. There is NO such thing as “debt arbitration”, just like there are no “debt providers.”

I’d LOVE to put these scammers out of business like FDRS, but of course they have a PRIVATE (anonymous) domain registration because they know they’d get sued real quickly by the people they scam.

Your homework saved me the trouble of checking further.

As I wrote above, you don’t have to PAY to STOP paying your creditors.

And I also want to mention that if there should be a debt settlement company that actually works for the consumers and does NOT charge huge fees upfront for doing NOTHING but taking money out of the consumers account, I’d like to hear about it.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find ANY debt settlement company with counselors who were COMPETENT and spent several hours to assess the consumer’s financial situation and credit BEFORE even considering settling debts.

As I wrote above, consider YOUR options.

Christine

It is a CRIME that California attorney general Jerry Brown allows scammers to operate with impunity.

I recently heard that he is running for governor and maybe it’s a good time to point out to him that the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA cesspool of scammers greatly contributed to the mortgage crisis and they CONTINUE to defraud many MILLIONS of people nationwide.

Anyway, I’m glad you decided not to sign up.

You could just stop paying your debts if you are (near) judgment-proof.

Nobody needs to make monthly payments to these scammers to not pay their bills.

You can simply set up your OWN savings account and MOST creditors will make you settlement offers after you stopped paying. I’ve seen offers for as low as 10% of the outstanding balance.

However, the creditors will most likely harass you with daily collection calls and you should do whatever it takes to minimize the harassment — change the number, use a voice mail, etc.

Signing up with one of these debt settlement companies will NOT stop the calls and will NOT prevent lawsuits.

Only an ATTORNEY can stop the calls (they have to call HIM instead of you), but he also can not stop lawsuits. And if you can afford to pay an attorney for this type of service, you might as well pay the creditors.

Unless you have a LEGITIMATE dispute, there’s little chance of successfully defending against the original CREDITOR. However, if an account has been sold to a debt buyer, your chances of getting their lawsuit dismissed are MUCH better.

Consider your options, research your STATE law (garnishment, statute of limitation, etc.) and make an EDUCATED decision.

Good luck!

Christine