My Story
Why My Story Will Amaze You… And How After What
Seemed To Be An Endless 4 Month Battle,
I Eventually Won My Battle With Debt
If you’re thinking about using any credit counseling service or debt consolidation plan to improve your credit rating and start to take control of your debt, I’m extremely relieved that you’ve found my blog because not only will my story shock you, it’ll almost certainly save you money as well as a lot of time and heart ache.
I will tell you exactly why I avoided FreeCreditReport.com and other so called credit support agencies…
And how I finally managed to discover the secret to increasing my credit score and taking control of my debt with a unique product called ‘ConsumerDirect’.
My name is Charlotte McGomery and like so many people, I spent years desperately trying to get my debt in order and take control of my finances.
I never used to have issue with debt. I got out of high school with zero debt and went to college (after working a stint) with only a single credit card. There was a small balance but I paid it down each month and usually paid off any balance in a month or two.
However, after being at school for a semester things started to pile up. At first it was my books, food now and again, and the occasional night out. I was taking classes so not working as much.
Making less money made it harder to not only avoid charging things but also harder to pay it off. This was fine for a while because I could still make my payments and event pay a little extra now and again.
That’s When Things Got Out Of Control
The problems started when I started feeling too under control!
I decided I needed a vacation and took a trip to Antigua for 10 days. I piled the whole thing on my credit card. Before I knew it, I was $4,000 in debt. It felt so impossible to pay off that I just didn’t care.
I continued to use it for lots of little things, $35 here, $97 there and in just a 2 year period of time I managed to accumulate 3 credit cards and $13,748.81 in total debt and had no vision of how I could pay it off.
That’s when I knew it was time to get serious and find help. I wasn’t managing my debt and bankruptcy was right around the corner if I didn’t get my act together fast.
I Tried FreeCreditReport.com and Failed.
First of all… they’re not free. You’d think that with a title like FreeCreditReport that the credit report would be free! However, I was ready to pay a fee if it meant I was going to get somewhere.
At first I felt pretty good. I had seen the commercials on TV and felt I was going to finally get some solid information about how to fix my credit. My credit score had gotten down into the 500s.
To be frank, their service wasn’t that great. They didn’t give me an easy way to identify negative items on my credit report. I knew I had done some damage after the last couple of years of intermittent payments. I couldn’t find out where the issues were and how to fix them.
I wasn’t doing any better and had just wasted my time and money.
Eventually I canceled their service.
Eventually, I found something that worked.
I had spent too much time, money and energy desperately trying to improve my credit score and get my debt consolidated and back on track. However, the next thing I tried that was called ‘Consumer Direct’.
I had never heard of it before and because of my recent experiences, I was initially a little dubious. But after reading some extremely complimentary reviews and learning that the cost was minimal compared to everything else I tried, I decided to give it a shot.
What seemed to be so different with this service right from the start was that major attention they gave to acting to improve your situation. They’re “With the Click of a Button” slogan caught my attention and certainly described what I needed (and had time for).
Here’s What My Experience Was Like and Why I Recommend It…
First off, let me tell you about my sign-up experience. It really involved 4 steps. You can click on any of the images below to see what the screen looked like during the sign-up. I’ve blocked out any information that is personal.
 1. Sign-Up Details (You have to enter your credit card but I'll show you how I was able to avoid having to pay anything)  2. Activation (Make sure you click on the image to read my notes) |
 3. Getting Your History (Click image for more notes)  4. Easy to Use Interface |
The reason why I recommend Consumer Direct is because clearly outlines each of the things impacting my credit score and exactly what I can do to improve it; on a creditor by creditor level.
And this is the great part: They provide this thing called, “SMART Action Buttons” that I can click to initiate the exact corrective action I need to do with each individual vendor. It takes all the guess work out of fixing things.
For example, here is a screen shot of the options they provide for things I might want to do with one of my credit cards. (Like all the images, you can click to see the larger view.)
Notice how they allow me to do all these things (”fix an error,” “make an offer to settle this debt, lower interest rate or defer payment,” “submit a question to the creditor directly,” etc.) directly for each individual creditor. This aspect of their service along saved me hours on the phone just trying to find the right person to talk to.
Errors were a big issue for me. I had a lot of different addresses during and after college. Consumer direct allows you to correct these or any other kind of error easily, with the click of a button!
Another great feature that I didn’t expect was a free guide titled, “The procrastinator’s Guide to Good Credit” (48 pages).
I downloaded it right away and found it to have a great set of chapters that showed me exactly what I was doing wrong and where I could improve. Here are the eight chapters it has:
- 5 Rules For Your Credit
- Know the Pain, Then Sign
- Why Waiting Works Against You
- Why Your Credit Is Important
- Establishing And Maintaining Good Credit
- Credit Scores and How They Work
- Restoring Your Credit
- Planning Your Future
In addition there is a solid appendix with great checklists. (And I’m the kind of person who really needs checklists!)
Another great feature is how it tells you what your future credit score could be if you made the correct actions. I’m doing pretty good. I still have some work to go if I want to get it up above 800 but I’ve made great progress.
- My Actual Score (Click To See Your Score)
Click Here to Visit Consumer Direct
This is the most amazing part
of the whole thing …
It’s Free!
I Incurred No Cost What So Ever!
The way it’s set up you get a free 5-day trial. And in that trial you have full access to all their features and services. I learned so much in just the first 20 minutes of my membership that I didn’t need to continue. I simply canceled using their instructions (which they easily laid out during the sign-up process).
They gave me a couple options to cancel my account:
- Option One: Call them 24/7 at 1 (866) 914-8906 or
- Option Two: Contact them through their online form
I decided to call them directly but was not able to get through. It was 3:45 PM on a Sunday when I called but their site did say 24/7. I ended up sending an email instead (see image) and that turned out just fine. They sent me a confirmation the next day to say my account was closed. I was never charged a dime.
I followed-up by phone during the week (Tuesday at 1:30 PM) and was able to get a very nice customer service representative (after about 6 minutes on hold) who confirmed that my account was closed. When I asked about Sunday the customer service representative was very apologetic and said that the call center was in Florida and that they were having some weather issues on Sunday. I believed her.
If there was anything else I could complain about it would be that sometimes I found the website to be a little slow. However, this was rare and seemed to only happen at peak times of the day (they probably get a lot of web traffic). Even when it moved a little slow it was still very usable and I never had any trouble with the service working.
| Would you like to learn more about Consumer Direct? I’ve prepared some If you’re interested, just drop me your email address below. |
These shortcomings notwithstanding, the overall experience was great. I only wish I knew about Consumer Direct ages ago. They way they organized my information, how easy they made it for me to review each of my creditors and view my debt consolidation and negotiation options, and just the quality of the experience was bar none.
Anyway, I hope you’ve found this information useful whatever your situation because if I had known about Consumer Direct a few years back, I would have gotten things in order a lot sooner and saved myself a lot of wasted money and sleepless nights. I wish you every success!
Sincerely,
Charlotte McGomery
