How can I unenroll from my debt settlement company?

If you are currently enrolled with a debt settlement company and you would like to discontinue your relationship with them, you have some options. Here’s how to unenroll from a debt settlement company.

Before you stop working with your settlement service provider, stop and consider a few things:

1. Are there settlements that you are making monthly installment payments on?

If the answer to this question is yes, putting an immediate stop to your relationship could impact those settlements. You may have to keep these accounts enrolled in your settlement plan, while unenrolling accounts that have not been settled yet.

Some debt settlement companies may not be okay with partial account enrollment, which could jeopardize settlement agreements that you are paying monthly. That could mean you’ll need to call the creditors, collection agencies, law firms or debt buyers, in order to re-establish your payments using a different account (other than the escrow account your settlement company has been using). You want to be sure to establish this several days before a payment is due to be pulled so you don’t miss a deadline and cause the existing settlement agreement to be cancelled.

2. What does your debt settlement company agreement say about how to cancel their service?

Providing notice of cancellation should be pretty painless and stopping any auto payments to your escrow account should not be difficult either. Talk to your bank if you need help with that. You should be able to withdrawal any moneys held in escrow.

If you enrolled with a company that charges fees in advance, you may not see all of your escrow funds returned. If your company has already performed a settlement that you have funded in full, or even partially, they will typically have already drafted their fees.

3. Rescinding the power of attorney.

You will want to find out who your settlement company has sent power of attorney (POA) notice to. This may sound odd, but you may not even be able to talk to your creditors or any debt collector about your own account until the POA is rescinded or cancelled.