Lilker Associates

Jul 2024

So, I finished my program with Credit Associates during the beginnings of the Covid TimeLine with the hopes to finish off a debt that was overwhelming for me and my family. We had been trying hard to get the debts under control and be able to get a home as soon as possible, but we were always told our DEBT was way too high to get approved for anything at all by the mortgage companies. We were referred to this place by our loan officer and they told me straight up when I called, that the process is long because I chose 36 months to be done and slow for the creditors to finalize a settlement with their negotiation department sometimes up to 12-18 months, and they also mentioned it's going to feel weird having the creditors call and be looking for their payments all the time, but it has to be done in this way or they would never approve anything through settlement unless you actually required help. And my monthly payments were just crazy high at 25% interest on my cards so I just couldn't afford them and a new house. So, something just had to give, so I accepted what they said, and they told me pretty much point blank that my credit would go down ALOT before it would go up to be ready to by my house in the future. But they stated that if you finish the program, you will pay off the $43k that I owed, and you will position yourself to be ready to buy a house when it was done. So, it's kind of a big LEAP .... but I trusted my mortgage officer, I knew I didn't want bankruptcy, and even though I saw a handful of reviews from places like google and BBB that people did succeed so I figured what do I have to lose.... I can't stay stuck in debt either and I couldn't afford 1300 a month like I was paying anymore. So, I put in my Wells Fargo, Chase Freedom, and my Discover, and just took the plunge, after about 10 months into the program, the first card got settled for a value that was about 51% off what I owed at the payments I was afforded and started chopping that one down when the money in my settlement account they gave me, about 6 months after that the Wells Fargo legal department did their settlement, which chunked that card down as well and then finally, I got the last card going into to full payoff mode around the 17th month,..... I was able because I got a new job to pay the debt down even earlier because they said there were no penalties, and they even said I should start looking for opportunities to get some credit cards slowly as the debts got finished off, I finished off my debt, finally, right around 2021, right before the bottom fell off completely in the house market, and I got my first house ever for me and my family. Was it an amazing time, NO, was it fun to be in debt in the first place HECK no, did I take a leap to ask for settlement sure, but I knew I didn't want to do Bankruptcy, my parents never raised me to want that. So can I vouch for anyone else here I can't .... but reading these reviews, doesn't look like anybody here who got a survey even finished their program, so.... how can they say how it went if none of them finished? SUPER weird. But I do recommend them if you're stuck, and you need to get free.