Complain about a product or service

Consolidated Credit Counseling Services

5701 West Sunrise Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, FL

Deborah of St Louis, MO (10/27/05)
When I joined CCCS, I was told that I had to authorize all my credit card accounts be closed. I gave permission for this to be done and assumed that CCCS followed my instructions and the agreement I made with them. Even though my credit card statements continue to show a credit line available, I paid more attention to the fact that they also stated that I had no credit for immediate use.

After 2+ years and getting nowhere with the debt reduction, I chose to refinance my house and pay off my credit cards in this manner. When I sent the check to CCCS, I stated that I wanted all accounts paid in full and all companies to be properly informed that I had withdrawn from the program.

When applying for a line of equity, I discovered that all of my credit card accounts were still active, thus negatively impacting my credit report. My report still shows that I am under consumer credit counseling, which is negatively impacting my credit report. I cannot obtain a credit card on an account because CCCS has never informed any of these companies that I had withdrawn from the program.

Elaine of Sugar Land TX (4/9/03):
My husband and I chose this company to help with our financial debt crisis and to our dismay, after about 90 days, we were in a worse financial situation than when we started. We got virtually little help with our creditors and decided to "disenroll" from the CCC program. We called CCC as well as faxed a statement to them telling CCC we no longer wished to participate in their program. We were told the next auto-debit for $932.00 would not occur from our checking account.

Desiray, a counselor/supervisor took it upon herself to not honor our request and went ahead and debited our checking account (which had previously been on autopay) $932.00 We had no knowledge and gave no consent for this debit to our account and subsequently our checking account went into the overdraft, was assessed hundreds of dollars in fees, and returned several checks to businesses that we use frequently. As a result, we are still responsible for our checking account and have not been reimbursed for these fees nor are we able to write checks to several businesses in our area as a direct result of Desiray's error. The only thing CCC has done since the problem occurred is to reimburse for the $932.00 that was taken in error.

Economically, we did not have the money to cover all of the bank fees that were assessed as a result of this "error" on the part of CCC. It has become a terrific hassle financially to try to cover the mistake until CCC decides what, if anything, that they will do to resolve this issue for us and make things right again. We now have a "tarnished" check account and "tarnished" relationship with people who received checks from us that bounced as a result of the $932 that was taken by CCC in error.

Elio of Cambridge MA (7/9/03):
I enrolled in this debt management program four months ago. And my interest rates and balances are now HIGHER than when I started. I have made all my payments on time through their program. The problem comes that supposedly it can take up to SIX months AFTER the CC company receives the proposal for rates and fees to be reduced.

In my case, TWO companies have not even received a proposal yet! The reason is that these were "business" accounts which need PAPER proposals rather then the ELECTRONIC ones CCCS insists on sending out. I called once 6 weeks ago, I was told it was sent out and should be fine. WRONG. MBNA called me. I called CCCS back, I got a manager on the phone who said he was dealing with the special MBNA department at CCCS and this was DEFINTELY being taken care of. WRONG. 3 weeks later I got a call from MBNA. Meanwhile, my account which was already at a painful 22.99 was jacked up to 29.89! AND Im still be hit with late fees and credit rot.

Damage Resulting: Credit rot, higher fees, this will cost me MORE money in the end. AND they signed me up for their GOLD dscount program at 5 bucks a month without asking me first.

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