First, I can't tell you what to do with you own personal finances. But, I can say that clients who are successful in our program voluntarily stop making payments to the creditors and stop using those cards. When you do this, within 6 months the creditor will put you in a category called "charge off", which is an accounting term that means you went from the profit side of the company to the loss side. This is when they will settle per their company guidelines. The creditors will not negotiate at all while you are current. When you are paying your minimums each month, it would take up to 30 years to pay off and $50K would end up costing you at least $150K. Even if you never add another cent on your cards. This is ideal for them so they have no incentive to settle your debt or work with you at all. This does not look anything like a bankruptcy.
Since we are negotiating on your behalf, when we settle your debt it does not show you went through a service on your credit report like other programs do. It shows that you, the client, settled your debt in full and have a zero balance with that creditor. The only (temporary) negative affect is that your credit report will show the past dues up to "charge off" until the end of your 24-36 month program. So at the beginning of the program you probably would have a drop in your credit score. Again, this is short term. As we start settling your debts one by one, your score will start to repair itself. This is because just having your debt negatively affects your credit score by 30%. Case studies show that scores are typically much higher once all of the unsecured debt is at a zero balance
