FAQ

The first step is for you call or email us for a free consultation. You will be assigned to a Consultant who will assess your financial situation and consult with you to understand your goals and your available options. Your Consultant will work with you to determine an appropriate monthly amount you have available to invest into your program to resolve your debts. Once you are enrolled into the program, our negotiators will contact your creditors to negotiate your accounts. Once a favorable settlement amount is reached, your negotiator will contact you for your approval of the settlement. If you agree, then you authorize the payment from your own Special Purpose account to your creditor. After an account is settled, the negotiation team will move onto your next account and do the same, until all of your accounts are successfully resolved.

A Special Purpose Account is an account you will open specifically with a Third Party Administrator (TPA) for your Debt Negotiation Program to save your Negotiation Funds. You select who will hold your Negotiation Funds and who will be the TPA to administer drafting monthly drafts and settlement payments to your creditors. Regardless of who is selected, any relationship is between you and the TPA, and Consumer Financial Alliance will not be a party of those contract(s) nor will we have authority to withdraw any money from your Special Purpose Account.

Consumer Financial Alliance offers a Limited “Money Back” Settlement Guarantee for each individual account entered into the Consumer Financial Alliance Debt Negotiation Program, which is not settled at sixty-five percent (65%) or less of the debt’s current face value at the time of settlement, including interest, penalties and late fees, we will refund you the Settlement Fees we collected on that individual account and we will still resolve the account as a courtesy to you.

Consumer Financial Alliance offers a Lowest Price Guarantee, which means Consumer Financial Alliance will match or beat any other Debt Negotiation company’s fees they quote you. Just provide Consumer Financial Alliance with the other company’s quote and we will match or beat their quote Guaranteed!

Being sued by one of your creditors is a possibility. If you receive a summons or notice of arbitration from a creditor, you will advise us of the lawsuit and we will attempt to negotiate a lump sum payoff and/or negotiate a periodic payment arrangement where payments will be made to the creditor over time. Our 65% or less Settlement Guarantee still applies even if you are sued.

Consumer Financial Alliance cannot stop a creditor from adding interest, penalties, or late/over-the-limit fees to an account. Your individual program will reflect those fees and/or interest, and these fees are incorporated into the Limited Settlement Guarantee. Because Consumer Financial Alliance’s often negotiates the debt down to a fraction of what you owe, your savings are usually far greater than any interest, finance charges, or late fees that can accrue.

No reputable debt negotiation company can promise that they will stop collection calls. However, after completing all of the relative steps to become a client of Consumer Financial Alliance, we will give you tools to keep track of any phone calls you receive from your creditors and we will educate you on how to handle these types of calls.

Yes, all debt resolution programs, such as Consumer Credit Counseling, Debt Consolidation, Debt Settlement, Debt Negotiation, and Bankruptcy have a negative effect on your credit. However, with the Company’s Debt Negotiation Program, once your individual accounts are settled, your creditors are required to report this information to the major credit reporting bureaus to update your credit report as “satisfied for less amount” or “settled paid in full” with a zero balance. The goal of the program is to get you out of debt in the least amount of time and lowest cost possible based on your current financial circumstances.

They may. If you receive calls at work from a creditor/collector, write the information down on your Call Log and refer to the Phone Response in your Welcome Package. Client Services will review the Call Log and if necessary contact the creditor and request that they discontinue calling you at work. However, once you have verbally asked a collector to refrain from calling you at work, they are obligated by law to stop. Always be sure to note if you have made that verbal statement to the offending collector on the call log, because if a collector persists, Consumer Financial Alliance will refer you to a consumer protection attorney on that violation, where you may be entitled to monetary damages from the creditor for these types of violations.

You could be required to pay taxes on any settlement savings. This is something that Consumer Financial Alliance cannot assist you with, however you can speak with any CPA, or tax professional who can give you further information on how this works. You can also review the IRS laws and forms at www.irs.gov. You will want to review IRS form 1099C and IRS form 982.

The exact time frame of settlement is determined by the status of your accounts, when you enroll them in the program, as well as, who the creditor is and the amount of funds that have accrued in your Special Purpose Account. This can take up to six to nine months for your first account to be settled. Additionally, you can contact Client Services anytime during the term of the program if you would like to add additional funds to your Special Purpose Account. You also have the ability to discuss your program with the Company’s Negotiation Team and can request for them to work on negotiating on any particular account.

No. Consumer Financial Alliance has found that payment consistency improves your ability to successfully complete the program. The goal is for you to keep in constant communication with Client Services, as they are the ones who will be working with you throughout the term of your program. Simply call Client Services at least 5 business days prior to your draft due date and they can help you to re-schedule your normal monthly payment. It is understandable that circumstances may arise and we can help you get back on track with your payment schedule. However, it is important that you respond to all requests for communication with the Company’s Client Services Department, as you can be dropped from the program for non-communication.

Keeping in constant communication with Client Services will allow you to do this. If for any reason you are unable to continue with your monthly payments, Consumer Financial Alliance will look at your particular circumstance to see if a different program length will be better suited for your situation.

When you enroll in Consumer Financial Alliance’s Debt Negotiation Program, your Negotiator will contact you to discuss the settlement strategy. You will receive notification regarding settlements when the Company’s negotiation team has successfully negotiated an amount that is consistent with our 65% or less Settlement Guarantee.

Consumer Financial Alliance will track the Negotiation Funds you save monthly in your Special Purpose account and negotiate on your behalf based on those available funds. Consumer Financial Alliance will inform you of all settlement opportunities and if you agree with the settlement terms that have been negotiated you will be provided with a Settlement Approval Letter which will include the details of your settlement. You will then review, sign, and send the document back to the Company’s Negotiation Team. Consumer Financial Alliance will set up the payment to your creditors from your Special Purpose account to finalize the settlement.

Consumer Financial Alliance cannot and will not tell you to stop paying your creditors. However, you have already determined you cannot afford to pay your minimum monthly payments to your creditors because of the financial hardship you have experienced then our Debt Negotiation Program is best for you.

If you wish to include any additional accounts into the program you would simply contact the Company’s Client Services Department. Once you have given us the pertinent information pertaining to the additional account, we will send you an updated recalculation of your monthly payments and total program costs.

Once the account has been settled with the creditor, they should not be calling you to attempt any further collections on the account. However, you will continue to receive monthly statements until you have made your final settlement payment on that particular account. Our negotiators will make sure that the creditor has all of the necessary information and a copy of the Settlement Satisfaction or Zero Balance Letter.

No. You may keep one credit card open for emergency purposes. Any accounts that are included in the program can no longer be used. Please be sure that the card you keep out of the program does not have the same issuing bank as any account included in the program. (That same issuing bank might decide to cancel that card which is left open in the future). Additionally, some creditors have a disclaimer in their agreement, that they can pull your credit at any point, cancel and/or lower your available credit as well as raise their interest rates based upon your debt to income ratio and risk to the creditor.

Creditors know that if they don’t settle even for a fraction of the debt, they will most likely get nothing. Creditors know that at a certain point, they have to make reasonable concessions. Most creditors are willing to settle very quickly. In the rare event that a creditor will not settle with the Company’s initial offer, they will usually return with a counter offer that will be favorable to you. Creditors know that if you choose bankruptcy, then they will receive absolutely nothing, and that is what your creditors are trying to avoid. Remember, all of your debt that has been accepted into the Company’s Debt Negotiation Program is “unsecured” debt. Unsecured debt is the most costly type of debt for a creditor or collector to collect on. In order to reduce their cost of collection, most creditors and collectors want to settle as soon as possible. Our experience in negotiating debt helps to obtain the best settlements for you possible in accordance with our 65% or less Settlement Guarantee.