Can you settle debts yourself?

Yes. You can call your creditors and negotiate without paying anyone to do it for you, and for some people that is the right answer. We sell the service, so weigh what follows accordingly, but a company that cannot tell you when to skip it is not being straight with you.

How direct negotiation actually works

The mechanics are not secret. An account has to be delinquent enough that the creditor is weighing recovery against writing it off, you have to have funds available, and someone has to make an offer. Creditors have internal ranges they will accept, those ranges vary by company and by how old the account is, and nobody outside can tell you the number in advance.

Ask for the department that handles settlements rather than the general collections line. Be straightforward about your situation. Make an offer you can actually fund now, because an agreement you cannot honor is worse than no agreement.

Get it in writing, every time

This is the part that matters more than the number you negotiate. Before any money moves, get a letter or email that states the account, the amount being accepted, that it settles the account in full, and how the balance will be reported.

A verbal agreement with someone whose name you did not write down, at a company that records calls but will not send you a copy, is not a settlement. It is a payment.

A verbal agreement is not a settlement. It is a payment, and the balance can still be sold to somebody else.

Where doing it yourself gets hard

One account is a phone call. Several accounts is a scheduling problem, and that is the real difficulty.

Every creditor wants to be paid now, out of the same limited pot. Settling the first one that answers can leave nothing for a larger balance whose creditor was about to move. Meanwhile the accounts you are not paying carry on deteriorating, and some are being sold to a debt buyer who starts the process over with different rules. Doing this well means knowing which account to hold and which to take, and that judgment comes from having watched a lot of them.

There is a stamina problem too. This is months of calls, most of them unpleasant, while collection contact increases. People who start strong often stop, and stopping halfway is the expensive outcome.

What you are actually paying a company for

Not access. Creditors are not more willing to talk to us than to you.

What a company adds is the sequencing across several accounts, familiarity with how particular creditors behave, the administration of a dedicated account and the paperwork, and somebody else absorbing the calls. Whether that is worth a percentage of your enrolled debt depends on how many accounts you have and how much of it you would realistically do yourself.

One or two accounts and a steady temperament: try it yourself first. Five accounts, collectors calling daily and no idea which to pay: that is what the service is for.

Either way

The consequences do not change based on who makes the call. Payments stop, accounts go delinquent, your credit falls and creditors keep the right to sue, whether you negotiate yourself or pay somebody to do it. Those are described in what debt resolution does to your credit.

And if you do decide to hire someone, the checks in how to tell whether a debt relief company is worth trusting apply to us as much as to anyone else.

Shores Financial LLC provides debt resolution services for unsecured debt. We are not a law firm, a credit repair organization, or a lender, and we do not provide legal, tax, credit repair, or bankruptcy advice. We do not originate loans. Results vary based on individual circumstances, creditor participation, and your ability to complete a program; not all clients complete their program, and we cannot guarantee that any particular debt will be reduced by any specific amount or percentage. Using a debt resolution service may adversely affect your credit score and may result in collection activity or legal action by creditors. Services are not available in all states.