Companies that reduce student loans: Beware

When they see the cost of their first student loan payment, many recent graduates are shocked. It’s also not unusual for graduates to fall behind on these payments. Additionally, many students will end up making one or more loan defaults. Recent graduates are frequently forced to look for any kind of relief, which adds to the already tremendous financial pressure they are under.

We want you to be cautious when seeking assistance from any company that makes promises that everything will disappear overnight. All too frequently, this type of relief may appear to come in the form of “student debt relief” businesses.

The Problem

There are several businesses that, for a fee, can assist you in figuring out how to pay off your student loan debt, defer your payments, and reach other agreements with student loan servicers. The cost of doing so is frequently very high, and you might discover that you are paying through the nose just to get the student loan collectors off your back, but at first it might all seem worthwhile.

Listed below are some arguments against it:

• You can typically arrange the same things on your own.
• You can perform every service offered by these businesses on your own.
• These businesses will pretend to have the solution to your problems, but they don’t.

In essence, you will be paying a lot of money to solve a problem that you can solve on your own for nothing. If you haven’t already defaulted, all you need to do is pick up the phone and call to make arrangements. If you haven’t defaulted, you can make payment arrangements on your own without anyone else’s assistance, but once you have, it gets a little more difficult to figure out how to get out of student loan debt.

When You Have Defaulted

Even if you receive constant calls from debt collectors, contacting a debt relief company is not a good idea. Why? Because frequently these businesses can make things worse, and you might end up involving more people in the process of trying to solve your issue. The best thing you can do is seek the assistance of a lawyer if you are bothered by debt collectors and concerned about garnished wages and poor credit.