That's a good question. I'm not sure what is the answer. I'll do some poking around and get back to you if I bump into an useful answer. You should email the people at Lending Tree as they probably could answer your Lending Tree question..

I'll be speaking w/ someone tomorrow, as soon as I get my statements together..

From talking to the rep this afternoon, it sounds like they have an attorney that settles w/ the cc companies for, apparently, about 35% of your balance. then they charge a fee of 25% of the 65% you saved (not sure if they meant 25 of the 65% or actually 25% of 65%???). then you make pmts into a trust-type account and.... well, this is where I get confused..

Anyway, that's why I was hoping someone hear could chime in w/ info..

Thanks!..

It don't sound good..

Edge solutions works like this and they shafted my mil...

Stay away from a Company like this.. What they will do is take the payments that you send to them for the next few months , collect interest on them, and while this is happening they are letting your accounts charge off and eventually be sold to a Collection agency, at that time they will try to settle with with The Collection Company...

If you are only two Months behind, find a Legit CCCS Company,, You should be able to find one in the Yellow pages...

RJ..

Have you called your creditors? Apparently, they might let you pay on a hardship basis if you can't make your normal payments. 2 months is not long enough to trash your credit with CCCS (in my opinion).

Good luck to you!..

When I was behind in the beginning (until I got behind on everything), my Chase acct let me go on their in house program called FlexPay- they lowered the interest and I said I will pay $X per month. They kick you off in 2 years, but now I pay on my own with no sweat- interest is about 10.65% now..

Call your accts see if they have thier own hardship programs to get on for a little while to catch up.

I am also on with Myvesta.org with my other accounts and regret it- I wished I had taken my own advise 2 yrs ago and callled the creditors individually and worked something out..

I am about three or more months behind on Merrick, Citi, MBNA, and FUSA. They all have hardship programs. They give you a break on the interest, but do not reduce the monthly payment by much. It is fine for me because I had a cash flow problem. Not so good for someone who is unable to make the monthly payments..

They will not even talk to you about the payment program until you are at least 60 days late (some are 90 days late). The problem with that is this means that your lates have been reported to the CRA's and your credit is trashed before you qualify for the programs. I went from a 704 FICO to 554 in a couple weeks when they started reporting..

You have to be persistent. Most will deny there is such a thing as a hardship program..

If you are dealing with any of the same four I have, and need more info, ask your questions here and I will try to answer them...

A couple more comments..

1. Almost everyone believes the counseling services are a ripoff. Many just keep your money. And, lenders see them as the same as bankruptcy..

2. The lenders I have dealt with will not negotiate a partial settlement this early. You need to be way behind in payments. They will see you as someone who may pay them so they will not settle for a partial payment yet..

3. There is one point about the hardship programs I forgot to mention. If you are two months behind, you owe those two payments plus the one coming up, for three total. The hardship program lets you pay just one of those now and the other two are added to your bill, so the cash out of pocket is reasonable..

4. If you are behind, they have probably jacked your interest rate to 20%+. The hardship program gets your rate down to a more manageable rate (sometimes below what you had originally)..

5.Most will stop late fees and over limit fees, saving you maybe $50 per month on each account..

I guess the real question is whether or not you can start paying again, or if you are hopelessly behind with no chance of catching up...

Thanks for the great info!.

As per everyone's advice, i'll probably stray away from creditpartnership.com. i'll keep my appt (this weekend) w/ CCCS and see how that goes..

Karen: from your list above, I have 2 Citi's (my wife and I) and an MBNA. the last I pd MBNA was Oct and the last I pd the Citi's was in Dec. I just got a letter from a collection agency yesterday trying to collect for mbna..

My main priority is to pay my Lending Tree mortgage first. I just paid my Dec Lending Tree mortgage last week. w/ our current income, we can pay the minimal on all our credit (secured and unsecured) but there would be absolutely nothing left for utilities, food, gas... basically all esentials. I don't see any solution which is why we're trying CCCS. I spent most of nov, all of dec, and early jan trying to refi our home but our debt to income was just too high..

Again, thanks for the great info guys/gals... i'm sure glad I found this forum =)..