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This concise article will enlighten you to some of the problems with consumer credit counseling programs. These are the facts that result in a drop off rate of in some cases over 80% of the clients who enroll themselves in these programs. Debtors should be aware of these facts before they get themselves into a online consumer credit counseling program to ensure themselves they are deciding on a wise financial move.

1. Most of the consumer credit counseling organizations are created and funded by the actual credit card issuers themselves. They are nothing more than a middle man for the credit card issuers to collect the debt amount owed.

2. The consumer credit counseling organizations work for and represent the credit card issuers; they do not work on behalf of the client. The credit card organizations dictate to the credit counseling company the monthly minimum payment requirement, and the APR. There is no middle ground at all on this.

3. The consumer credit counseling firms can reduce the APR, however they can never actually reduce the principal balance. The standard APR on one of these programs is around 10% which is more in the middle than actually being a low interest rate. By not reducing the principal balance they are not truly a form of credit card debt reduction, this is just an sped up repayment program.

4. You will end up actually paying more than the original debt amount, due to the monthly fees, APR and reduced monthly payments which drastically extends the amount of time you are going to be in debt.

5. It can have a brief derogatory effect on your credit rating and is made a public record on your credit report, during the duration of the program.

6. Receiving a mortgage for a house while on a consumer credit counseling program can become undeniably hard, almost impossible.

7. Here is the kicker and read carefully. If you drop behind only one payment while on a online consumer credit counseling program you will be kicked off and the credit card companies will not allow you to get back into another program for a year. Placing your debts right back to where they were before, high interest and all. This is the number one reason why over 75% of the people enrolled in these programs fail off.

I mean think about it for a minute. They place you into a online consumer credit counseling program that may be up to 5 years or more. As everyone knows or will come to know the adventure that is life has its good times and its bad times. If you find it very tight to be on the program in the first place you will drop out. Any unforeseen financial problems as little or large as they may be can contribute to you missing just one payment and getting kicked off of the program. You need to seriously think about how steady your finances and income security are before getting into a credit counseling program to evade being part of that 80%. The bottom line is people with a large sum of debt such as $10,000 or more should lean more towards credit card debt settlement than credit counseling. Credit counseling is much more suited for individuals with much lower sums of debt that do not have much of any issues keeping up with their bills in the first place. If you are seeking to reduce your debt and get out of debt in a timely fashion, then credit counseling is just not for you.