My mother and I have a couple of private school loans in both of our names for around $30,000, she also has a few other debts totaling $13,000. In April of 2009 she signed up for a debt settlement program with the J Hass Group, basically for 48 months we pay them $500 a month and the are supposed to settle all of our debts. Well I started to get curious about where my money was going and how much of my debt was paid off.
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I called them today, we have paid them around $8,500, our trust account has $2600. Which means some $5900 has gone towards fees and some ‘reserve’ account. None of it really made sense to me how he tried to explain it. The kicker, NONE of our debts have been settled. We have 6 creditors with them and they haven’t settled ONE. Apparently they are working on negotiations with one of them now, and it’s the lowest debt of only $1900!
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They tried to tell me it takes around 1 1/2 to start getting settlements (which conveniently is how long we have been paying). They told me the goal was to have them all paid off in 48 months and that they would succeed in that goal. Well I feel suckered.
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Does anyone have experience with these programs. Any advise on what I should do? Should I keep paying them? Or just stop and see $8500 flushed down the drain?