This short writing will reveal to you some of the facts about online consumer credit counseling programs. These are the issues that result in a drop off rate of in some cases over 80% of the people enrolled in these programs. Debtors should be aware of these facts before they enroll themselves into a online consumer credit counseling program to make sure for themselves they are making a beneficial financial move.

1. Most of the online consumer credit counseling companies are made and funded by the actual credit card issuers themselves. They serve as a sort of middle man for the credit card issuers to collect the debt amount owed.

2. The online consumer credit counseling companies work for and represent the credit card companies; they do not work on behalf of the client. The credit card organizations stateto the credit counseling company the monthly minimum payment that is required and the APR. There is no middle ground at all on this.

3. The online consumer credit counseling establishments will lower the APR, however they can never actually lower the original balance. The standard interest rate on one of these programs is around 13% which is more in the middle than actually being a low interest rate. By not reducing the original balance they aren't really a method of credit card debt relief, this is just an accelerated payment program.

4. You will wind up actually putting out more than the principal debt amount, due to the monthly maintenance fees, APR and lowered monthly payments which drastically bumps up the amount of time you are going to be in debt.

5. It does have a momentary negative effect on your credit score/report and is made a public record on your credit history, during the duration of the program.

6. Attaining a home loan while on a online consumer credit counseling program can become very complicated, borderline impossible.

7. Here is the number one reason people fail and read extremely carefully. If you miss only one payment while on a online consumer credit counseling program you will be kicked out of the program and the credit card companies will not allow you to sign into another program for a year. Which will put your bills to where they were prior to enrolling into the program, high interest and all. This is the number one reason why upwards of 75% of the clients signed into these programs fail off.

Relax for a second and think about this. They put you on a online consumer credit counseling program that may last 5 years or more. As everyone knows or will come to know the adventure that is life has its good times and its bad times. If you find it extremely tight to be a client on the program in the first place you will drop out. Any random financial problems as big or small as they may be can contribute to you falling behind just one payment and getting kicked out of the program. You need to very seriously think about how secure your finances and income security are before getting into a consumer credit counseling program to keep away from being part of that 80%. The bottom line is people with a large amount of debt such as $15,000 or more should lean more towards debt settlement than credit counseling. Credit counseling is much more viable for individuals with smaller sums of debt that do not have much of any problems keeping up with their bills in the first place. If you are looking to lower your debt and get out of debt in a timely fashion, then credit counseling is just not the way to go.

Steve Bis is a debt analyst with the US Consumer Advocate, which practices debt relief.