Advertisements for free debt consolidation are popping up everywhere, but they bring up the vital question, “Are they really free?” How can a service afford to offer free debt consolidation? If they aren't making money, how can they stay in business? To learn the answers to these questions, you need to understand how a debt consolidation service works.
Debt consolidation companies negotiate with your creditors.
When you work with a consolidation service, they talk to your creditors and negotiate to lower your debt. After they have negotiated to lower the amount you owe, with each of your creditors, you will notice that the amount of money you have to pay out each month is significantly lower than it was.
Debt consolidation companies don't give you a loan.
When you work with a debt consolidation company, they don't give you a loan that you then repay to them. Rather you make one monthly payment to the company and the company then distributes that money out to your creditors according to the terms that they negotiated. The single monthly payment you make will be lower than the total of payments you were making to all of your creditors and by following the payment schedule, you will pay off your debts sooner.
Debt consolidation companies do charge a fee.
When you send your monthly payment to the debt consolidation service they do take a fee from the amount you send to cover their services. Over the life of their services, the fee that they take should add up to less than the amount of money that they saved you by negotiating to lower your debts. Because you end up saving money by working with a debt consolidation service, the money that they do take did not come out of your pocket, but rather out of the money that they saved you, so that is why debt consolidation services can claim that the help they provide is free.
