Do you really want help like this?
Written: May 13 '01
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
| Web Site Experience: |
 |
|
| Web Site Load Time: |
 |
|
| Was this company effective in managing your debt: |
|
|
| Was this company effective in managing your interest rate?: |
|
|
|
Pros: None that I found.
Cons: Do not fall for the phrase "free".
The Bottom Line: Stay away from this company!!!
|
|
|
| tandaw's Full Review: American Debt Consolidation |
My husband and I were finding it hard to make ends meet when we found out we were expecting out second child. Thinking that the thing to do would be pay off all of our credit cards and small loans we checked into several debt consolidation programs. I received a phone call from a personal adviser from ADC. She assured me that they could help me get things in order. They promised lower interest rates and no late fees as well as cutting the length of time it would take me to pay off my debts.
I thought the program sounded great. After all the help they were offering was 'free'. So I filled out the rest of the paper work and found a fax machine so that I could fax everything right on to them. I was given the amount of $485.00 a month for my payments and assured that it would be lowered in 6 months as long as we paid the amount owed on time. So happily thinking that I had found the answer to our problems I mailed my first payment to them. Of course that first payment went to them. The so-called donation that is REQUIRED. Which meant unless I wanted to add late fees to already falling behind bills I had to also make my monthly payments. So I struggled to come up with the extra money to cover both my payments and the "donation" to ADC. A few days after ADC received my first payment they called me to explain that they had made a mistake. They needed more money in order to cover everything. I questioned this because the adviser I had spoken to said they had already lowered my rates and taken care of the problems we might have incurred with any late fees. The amount they were requesting was more than what I would have paid monthly if I was only making my regular payments anyway. This did not seem right to me. But I went ahead and sent the difference between the payment I was first given and the new payment they were asking for.
I continued to receive calls from my creditors and they repeatedly told me they had not been contacted by anyone from ADC. My local bank called me to let me know that I had fallen 2 payments behind on a co-signed loan and the bank manager double checked to see if they had been contacted by anyone. Again they had not. This was the same response I got from all of my creditors when I contacted them. Not one of them had been notified by ADC as my adviser had said they would be. So I called ADC and was told that everyone had been contacted and that they had all agreed to to payment plan and lower rates as sent out in the proposal by ADC.
When it was time to mail my second payment to ADC I called to make sure once again that the proposals had all been accepted and everything was in order. Of course she tried to assure me that is was but when I questioned her about an account with a made up name she told me the interest rate that they had agreed to. She also told me that the bank I use had agreed to the plan put before them. However I had already talked to someone from my bank and they do not even work with debt consolidation companies of this type. They will work with an individual person or another bank, but do not accept plans such as this.
I never mail ADC my second payment. I did find a bank willing to consolidate for me. I still receive calls and notices from ADC to this day telling me that my creditors are asking for the money I owe them. They do not seem to realize that my creditors were paid off months ago and would not be in contact with ADC to start with. But I now have a bad credit rating because of the missed payments when I sent the "donation" to ADC. Which I have never been able to get back.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
tandaw
|
|
Member: Tania Dawson-Ellison
Location: Clanton,AL
Reviews written: 68
Trusted by: 19 members
About Me:
WAHM of Alex and Hannah , avid scrapbooker and a freebies/refund lover.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2010 Shopping.com, Inc.