How long does debt negotiation hurt your credit rating? Is it worth it in order to become debt free ?

Any referals of companies that have worked for you? any impartial websites that rate the companies?

How long does debt negotiation hurt your credit rating? Is it worth it in order to become debt free ?
If you use credit repair, it should be less than a year. It is worth it. My mom used www.totaldebtsolutionsllc.com and their free evaluation form. Very professional.
Reply:Typically, debt negotiation will not hurt your credit rating as much as ignoring your debt. Specifically ask your credit counseling agency to make sure that your debt's status on your credit report is changed to "Pays as agreed". That will look GOOD on your credit report, as opposed to delinquent.





Typically, you have to get a counseling agency to call on your behalf. If you try to work with them yourself, many of them will not cooperate with you because you are not enrolled in credit counseling. Try http://www.womenindebt.info. Good luck!
Reply:I've heard it varies depending on what caused the debt, how well you managed it, if it defaulted, etc. If you were doing your best to make the payments on time and suddenly stopped for some reason, such as disability or loss of job, they might be able to work something out with better terms than if you had just run up a credit card and ignored the creditors from day one.





The best advice I think I can give you is to do what you have to do to level out the playing field - see if they'll work with you, bring it to a level you can afford to pay. Make the payments and pay it off. You can rebuild your credit after the fact. Just remember to be more careful with your debts next time! =)





As for bringing your credit score back up to a good level, there's a ton of ways to do that. I don't know enough about all the ways available to you to start telling you what to do, but if you look there are tons of websites and eBooks available. I've heard good things about this one from friends: http://bilsmith.niesong.hop.clickbank.ne
Reply:It will stay on your record for 7 years.





No, it's not worth it. You would not get a credit card, car loan, mortgage etc with a decent interest rate, if you would get them at all. Landlords might not rent you decent apartments etc. It can come back to bite you in the rear end in many ways. In the financial field you would be labelled as the bum and it might cost you more on the long run.





Also, it is not fair to the rest of society... people who pay their debt will end up paying for the ones who don't. Debt doesn't just disappear, one way or another it is collected (prices go up, interest goes up etc).
Reply:This is what I've heard from several people. Any debt stays on your record for 7 years, but everytime you negotiate, make a small payment, etc, that time starts all over again. I would consider what kind of debt it is and how much it is. If there's NO way you can pay it off in the next 7 years and it's only credit card debt you might consider just not paying and waiting it out.
Reply:I think 5 years then it doesn't show up on your record anymore.