What happens to my credit

The effect of our debt reduction program on your credit score will partly depend on your current credit status before starting the program. Few people with debt troubles have perfect credit to begin with. In general, your credit score (usually called the FICO score) will decline during the program, and will begin to improve again after you have become debt-free. There are several key points to bear in mind here. We recommend against applying for new credit while going through the program. It simply doesn't make sense to take on new debt while you're trying to tackle your existing debt problem. So the short-term decline in credit score is rarely a problem for clients. In addition to this the credit score itself does not take into account the debt-to-income ratio, which is used by lenders (especially in the mortgage industry) to determine whether you qualify for a home or auto loan. In other words, you can have a high credit score due to a clean payment history (even though it's been killing you financially to keep up those payments) and still be denied a new loan because you already carry too much debt. By completing a debt reduction program, your debt-to-income ratio will improve dramatically! Any way you look at it, the effects of Debt Reduction on your credit will certainly be less damaging than the 10-year derogatory mark made by bankruptcy.