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5 debt relief red flags to know
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Debt can be challenging and the idea of debt relief can be an attractive one. After all, if you’re struggling to make your payments each month and someone offers you a way out, it makes sense to listen to what they have to say.
And, while there are plenty of legitimate debt relief services, it’s also important to be cognizant of the potential for scams. After all, those looking for debt relief may be eager to get help, making them easy targets for scammers.
But what if you’re struggling to make your payments every month? Well, you don’t have to avoid debt relief solutions altogether — but it is a good idea to be aware of the red flags that signal a scam.
Compare your top debt relief options now.
5 debt relief red flags to know
A quality debt relief solution can help you eliminate your debt faster and more affordably than you otherwise could. But a scam could put you in a worse position than you are today. Here are the red flags you should look for as you compare your options.
They make promises that are too good to be true
“The easiest way to spot a scam is probably if it is too good to be true,” says John N. Wood, Esq., managing attorney at Grant Park Legal Advisors. “For example, if they guarantee or promise a specific result.”
Most legitimate debt management and debt forgiveness programs can’t tell you exactly what the result of their services will be. That’s because much of the savings in time and money they offer are achieved through negotiations.
As such, if a debt relief provider promises something like, “We’ll settle for 50% less than what you owe” before you even sign up for the service, that provider could be stretching the truth or scamming you.
Get in touch with a leading debt relief provider today.
They charge up-front fees
Scammers work hard to get you to part with your money. So, if someone asks you to pay a fee for a debt relief service they haven’t yet provided, it’s a red flag that the person you’re talking to is attempting to scam you.
It’s also against the law to try and collect a debt relief fee before any work has been done. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the advance fee ban dictates that fees for debt relief services may not be collected until:
- The debt relief service successfully settles or changes the terms of at least one of the debts
- There is a settlement agreement, debt management plan or other agreement between the consumer and the creditor that the consumer has agreed to
- The consumer has made at least one payment to the creditor as a result of the agreement negotiated by the debt relief provider
They contact you via an unsolicited phone call
“Another flag may be an unsolicited call,” says Wood. “While they may be legitimate, this should cause the consumer to do a little more research before engaging with the debt company.”
It’s worth noting that some legitimate debt relief services use telemarketing as a way to attract new customers. Still, it’s also a tool used by scammers, so before you sign up for a service via an unsolicited phone call, you should do your research.
They claim to be affiliated with your financial institution
Another red flag to consider is if the debt relief service claims to be affiliated with the financial institution you owe money to. Debt relief companies are third-party service providers and are not typically affiliated with lenders.
Pretending to be affiliated with your financial institution is a common practice scammers use to win trust. In fact, it’s one of the ways that the Federal Trade Commission says that the alleged perpetrators of a debt relief scam stole millions of dollars from people.
They charge fees unrelated to your debt
Legitimate debt relief companies charge fees for the services they provide, and those fees are how they make their money. However, the fees are usually directly related to their success in reducing your debt or changing your payment terms and are easy to understand. On the other hand, scammers will often attempt to charge obscure monthly fees for services that are unrelated to the debt relief services.
The bottom line
If you’re dealing with mounting credit card debt and need relief, there are legitimate debt relief companies to choose from. However, as you compare your options, consider the red flags above to avoid becoming a victim of a debt relief scam.
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The escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continued Saturday as both sides traded strikes as the war in Gaza nears one year.
The Israel Defense Forces said its air force struck Hezbollah fighters inside a mosque in southern Lebanon that they said was used as a command center to “plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel.”
The mosque was adjacent to Salah Ghandour Hospital in the town of Bint Jbeil. The hospital said in a statement that Israeli forces had shelled it after being warned to evacuate. The shelling “resulted in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated. On Thursday, the World Health Organization said 28 health workers in Lebanon had been killed in the past 24 hours.
ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images
At the same time, 12 Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, including one that badly damaged a large hall Hezbollah used to hold ceremonies, Lebanon’s state news agency said.
Later in the day, more strikes hit the area, from which tens of thousands of people have fled over the past two weeks.
Israeli airstrikes also hit areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, according to state media. At least six people were killed, according to NNA.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it launched a series of rockets at an Israeli air base near Haifa, about 30 miles from the Lebanese border. Israeli police said fragments of interceptors fell in several sites but no injuries were reported, according to the Associated Press.
Israel has sharply expanded its strikes on Lebanon in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah — long designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and many other nations. The IDF has been carrying out nightly bombardment of Beirut’s once densely populated southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah. Overnight, a military spokesman issued three alerts for residents there to evacuate.
Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images
Nearly a week of Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon, near Israel’s northern border, and two weeks of airstrikes in that region and in southern Beirut — both Hezbollah strongholds — had killed more than 2,000 people, the health ministry said. More than 1 million people have been driven from their homes, including tens of thousands under Israel evacuation orders in almost 100 towns and villages near the border.
Hezbollah started launching those attacks in support of its ideological ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, the day after Hamas sparked the ongoing war in Gaza with its Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel. The IDF says Hezbollah militants have fired over 10,000 rockets across the border since Oct. 8, 2023. The vast majority of them have been intercepted by Israel’s advanced missile defense systems.
Israel conducts more ground raids
The Israeli military said on Saturday its special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, destroying missiles, launchpads, watchtowers and weapons storage facilities. The military said troops also dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.
Some 1.2 million people have been driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border. On Tuesday, Israel launched what it calls a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon.
Nine Israeli troops have been killed in close fighting in the area in the past few days, which is saturated with arms and explosives, the military said.
Americans attempt to leave Lebanon
The U.S. government has warned Americans not to travel to Lebanon since mid-September and urged any citizens in the country to leave via commercial travel routes. As of Friday night, the U.S. State Department has assisted approximately 500 U.S. citizens, permanent residents and their families to leave Lebanon on flights organized by the agency.
Other nations are also working to evacuate their residents from Lebanon. Germany has evacuated 460 citizens on German military flights, while a Dutch military transport plane carried more than 100 citizens out of Lebanon. There were also citizens of Belgium, Finland and Ireland who were repatriated on that flight.
ROB ENGELAAR/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s great that these people are safely back in the Netherlands. These have been tense times for them,” Christiaan Rebergen, secretary-general of the foreign ministry, said after they landed Friday.
Fighting ongoing in Gaza
Palestinian medical officials say Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza early Saturday have killed at least nine people, including two children.
One strike hit a group of people in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five people, including two children, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
Another strike hit a house in the northern part of Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four people, the Awda hospital said. The strike also left a number of wounded people, it said.
The Israeli military did not have any immediate comment on the strikes but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military had warned residents in parts of central Gaza to evacuate, saying its forces would soon operate there in response to Palestinian militants.
The warnings cover areas along a strategic corridor in central Gaza, which was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal earlier this summer. The military warned Palestinians in areas of Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, located along the Netzarim corridor, to evacuate to an along Gaza’s shore called Muwasi, which the military has designated a humanitarian zone. It’s unclear how many Palestinians are currently living in the areas affected by the order, parts of which were evacuated previously.
Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the almost year-long war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
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1-month-old twins who died with mother believed to be the youngest-known Hurricane Helene victims
Month-old twin boys are believed to be the youngest known victims of Hurricane Helene. The boys died alongside their mother last week when a large tree fell through the roof of their home in Thomson, Georgia.
Obie Williams, grandfather of the twins, said he could hear babies crying and branches battering the windows when he spoke with his daughter, Kobe Williams, 27, on the phone last week as the storm tore through Georgia.
The single mother had been sitting in bed holding sons Khyzier and Khazmir and chatting on the phone with various family members while the storm raged outside.
AP
Kobe’s mother, Mary Jones, was staying with her daughter, helping her take care of the babies. She was on the other side of the trailer home when she heard a loud crash as a tree fell through the roof of her daughter’s bedroom.
“Kobe, Kobe, answer me, please,” Jones cried out in desperation, but she received no response.
Kobe and the twins were found dead.
“I’d seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn’t made it out there yet to meet them,” Obie Williams told The Associated Press days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”
The babies, born Aug. 20, are the youngest known victims of a storm that had claimed more than 200 lives across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas. Among the other young victims are a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy from about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south in Washington County, Georgia.
“She was so excited to be a mother of those beautiful twin boys,” said Chiquita Jones-Hampton, Kobe’ Jones’ niece. “She was doing such a good job and was so proud to be their mom.”
Jones-Hampton, who considered Kobe a sister, said the family is in shock and heartbroken.
In Obie Williams’ home city of Augusta, 30 miles east of his daughter’s home in Thomson, power lines stretched along the sidewalks, tree branches blocked the roads and utility poles lay cracked and broken. The debris left him trapped in his neighborhood near the South Carolina border for a little over a day after the storm barreled through.
He said one of his sons dodged fallen trees and downed power lines to check on Kobe, and he could barely bear to tell his father what he found.
Many of his 14 other children are still without power in their homes across Georgia. Some have sought refuge in Atlanta, and others have traveled to Augusta to see their father and mourn together, he said.
He described his daughter as a lovable, social and strong woman. She always had a smile and loved to make people laugh, he said.
And she loved to dance, Jones-Hampton said.
“That was my baby,” Williams said. “And everybody loved her.”