Family Credit Counseling

I signed a contract with this organization in 2004. They promised to take over three accounts (two credit cards, and one medical bill). They said they would negotiate with all three creditors to lower my monthly payments, reduce the monthly charges and fees, and improve my credit history. None of this has happened. I made monthly payments to this company and they neglected to make payments on time. One creditor has no record of ever having spoke to anyone from this organization.

As a result of this nightmare, one account was turned over to a collections agency, and i am behind the other two accounts. They recently lost a class action lawsuit and sent me a letter to send to my creditors, which i did, but nothing happened! I filed two separate complaints with the South Florida Better Business Bureau, but they basically ignored my complaints. I cannot believe they are still in operation.

This organization basically ruined my credit history. I still haven't been able to figure out what happened to all the money I sent them; they don't comply with my requests for a detailed report of payment and disbursement history.

On October 15, 2008 another servicing company took over. This is ADC. The FCCC payment was never forwarded to our creditors and assumed in the possession of FCCC as ADC only is servicing accounts as of Oct 15, 2008 and takes no responsibility for funds with FCCC prior to that date.

FCCC is in possession of $1326 of our funds which were not forwarded to our creditors. This results is late payment, fees, negative credit bureau reporting and potential drop from the program with our creditors. In addition, we are out the $1326.00.

Family Credit Counseling Corporation is debiting $690 a month out of our account in order to pay our creditors. However, they are not paying our creditors in a timely manner. We have been with this company since August 2006, and during this time, a credit card has dropped us from the debt consolidation program due to not getting their payments on time, we've been charged late fees, and are currently in jeopardy of another credit card being dropped because they are not recieving the payments on time.

Everytime we call to inquire why the creditors are not being paid, they apologize and say they don't know what happened but they will get it out right away. I recently spoke to a customer service manager who told me that if I didn't like the service, I should drop out of the program. When I asked him about a refund, he had no answers for me. They are holding $678 of our money, if we drop out, we will forfiet our right to get that back.

We joined the debt program in order to reestablish our credit and to pay off our debts. Our credit is getting worse because not only is it showing we consolidated, it shows that we are still not paying on time. This is horrible. We are losing sleep, money, patience, and time. We don't know what else to do.

When I enrolled with FCCC, I was required to make a $353 payment for attorney's fees. The warning bells should've gone off right then. A month later, after noticing that FCCC hadn't debited my account for my first payment and calling them to find out why, I was told I'd never faxed them a completed ACH form. However, when I spoke to a representitive who welcomed me to their company, she took all of my checking account information over the phone, and I was never informed that I had to fax anything. This considerably slowed down payment getting to my creditors.

About a month later, I found out that not only hadn't FCCC sent proposals to all of my creditors, several that were sent were denied, and I only found this out after the creditors contacted me directly. I asked FCCC to resubmit the proposals, and was told that I should contact my creditors and have them call FCCC to request another proposal.

After realizing that I was doing a much better job of manageing my debt than these clowns were, I cancelled my enrollment with them. Naturally, they debited my account again after they received my cancellation notice, and now I've filed a claim with my bank to recoup the fraudulent ACH charge. FCCC's phone #s are usually busy, but when they're not and I'm lucky enough to speak to a representative, said representative doesn't know much and can do even less, and supervisors are either affected by the hurricane, unavailable, or out for the holidays.

I signed us up for this company's credit counseling services, which included a large up-front payment (I know, STUPID) and then tried to cancel several days later. They then claimed we were too late to cancel, and later on tried to withdraw the payment from our account anyway. The payment bounced, and we placed a stop payment on all further withdrawals by them. They threatened us, saying it was a felony to put a stop payment on our account towards them, and that they were going to sue us. I spoke to the manager personally.

He was very, very nasty and aggressive, and slammed the phone down on me the first time we spoke, while I was trying to explain that the withdrawal would bounce. He thought they had the money then, and didn't care about our situation. He called back in a fury the next day when the withdrawal bounced, and threatened to sue us, and when I told him it would bankrupt us, said he didn't care about that. I would advise all consumers to avoid this company like the plague. They are also known as Consumer Debt Management & Education, Inc, Debt Solutions Foundation, and probably a host of other names.

I have become very sick from the stress, and our family is suffering terribly, with all the bullying we have received from this company. My husband and I are terrified we will be bankrupted and lose our home.