'Debt free' promises? Let the consumer beware

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sun-debt-settlement-aug03,0,1178848.story

By Stephen Franklin | Chicago Tribune Reporter
August 3, 2008

MATTOON, Ill. — After Darren Robertson got laid off from his factory job, he and Julie Fitzpatrick, his girlfriend, ran up nearly $10,000 in credit card balances on food, gas, medical and heating bills. That's when Fitzpatrick discovered a company on the Internet that promised to make them debt free.

But things only got worse after they signed up with the company.

Once they stopped paying their credit card bills, as suggested by the debt settlement firm, collectors began calling day and night, and sometimes all day Sunday. Their credit rating plummeted, their debt ballooned to more than $12,000 and Fitzpatrick's worries soared.

One day two months ago Fitzpatrick, who has cerebral palsy and is nearly deaf, slipped into a room out of Robertson's sight. "I couldn't go through with this," she said with a sad shrug about her bills. She tightened a belt around her neck and planned to pull it, but backed down.