President Obama recently announced that this years’ deficit will be $1.4 trillion. What that means is that in a single year, the United States Government has borrowed $1.4 trillion in order to keep itself going. That’s on top of whatever it collected in the form of assorted taxes on the good people of this country. In spite of that mind boggling spending, people are still drowning in debt, the official unemployment rate stands at 9.8 percent and is expected to continue climbing. The unofficial numbers are even more depressing, since many people are not registered as unemployed anymore since they’ve already exhausted all their benefits. The actual numbers are closer to 20%, a truly frightening figure in today’s economy. Add to that the runaway debt that many Americans have managed to rack up over the years and you’ve got a really horrible situation brewing. A great many people are defaulting on mortgages and credit cards and some are hoping to find relief by looking for services that consolidate credit card bills. The idea sounds good, but watch out! There are unfortunately an awful lot of people trying to prey on those seeking relief and not everyone is out to help you out of debt. Finding out about consolidating credit card bills can be a minefield if you aren’t careful about who you ask for help.

The way it works when you work with a legitimate credit card consolidator is that you provide them with the information on all your various credit cards. They then contact the companies on your behalf and negotiate a deal, sometimes just a lower interest rate and sometimes a reduction in the total you owe. Depending on how much you’re able to pay on the spot, as opposed to how much you need to pay out over time, you can save significant amounts of money with these services. However, a great many of them will simply take your money and run, causing you to rack up ever greater amounts of debt and causing ever greater problems for you as a debtor. So how can you protect yourself from the scammers? Follow these simple rules:

• Look for a company that has been in business for a while. The scammers tend to come and go quickly.
• Ask questions. Lots of them. A legitimate place will happily answer any questions you have. Scammers will try to get you to hand over money quickly.
• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. One obvious scammer promised to get your debt down to as little as 35 cents on the dollar. I’m sorry to say that this will not happen without bankruptcy and if they make claims like these, they’re probably scammers.