American Credit Foundation, Inc.

Our client *** chose to start our debt management program on July of before making her first payment she had called in expressing concern about not being able to afford her payment We went over several options with her to help make her feel comfortable with the payment
structure and she agreed to stay with our program Prior to her first payment she had called us to say that she needed to cancel that months payment and she will pay the creditors on her own We advised her that failing to make payments on her own could cause creditors to take her off of our programShe still adjusted her start date with us and doing so pushed her start date with us until September of All of her payments from the time she paid us in September up through January of were sent to the creditors based on the arrangements that we had set up with her creditors She did contact us in February of 2017, after cancelling, to express concern about her creditors showing past due and her credit score dropping and so, like we always do, we looked into what could have caused these issues Upon investigation we found that the accounts fell past due because when she cancelled her payments with us for July and August she did not pay them directly and so the creditors were already past due when she started with us, this will cause her credit score to drop The client decided to cancel and pursue help from a settlement company which we know will negatively impact her score and advised her of this The following E-mail was sent February 2017:***,Thanks for the emailEvery payment that we have drafted from your account has been sent to your creditorI called the accounts and looked your statements that you sent in and also looked back at the notes we have in our system from when you spoke to Chris, Zen, and John in our office and it looks like the reason it is showing past due, is because you were set to start in July but you didn’t end up making a payment until 9/5/That is where it fell past dueYou told us several times that you could not afford the payment and that is when we stopped the drafts and we moved them to 9/5/That was per your request and that is what has caused them to fall past dueYou can call your creditors and they will tell you that every payment we took after that, has been applied to the accounts and paidWe are not a settlement company and do not keep your funds in houseEverything we draft we send outYou can verify that with your creditors and they will give you the proof that the payments were sentWe are sad to see you cancel over a simple misunderstanding when you can still save hundreds of dollars on the program with the lower interest ratesLet me know if you have any further questions or concerns.Thanks!

We have to reiterate again that all of the payments that were made by *** from September to January of were sent out to the creditors on time The credit score could have dropped due to the fact that *** postponed the first two payments that she agreed to make for the months of July and August of causing the creditors to fall past due American Credit Foundation never missed a payment to the creditors when *** made a payment to us

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:  I made the payments on my credit cards on time for July and August, 2016.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

We have spoken to Crystal on a few separate occasions to address this concern.  What seems to be happening is that when an account is set up on a debt management program it is not always possible to match all of the creditors due dates with the day that we send payments to them.  What will...

happen is that a creditor will print their monthly statement a few days prior to receiving our payment which will make the account appear to be past due.  In reality the account never goes 30 days without a payment and so is not reported to the credit bureau, and because the creditors know that the due dates cannot always be matched they do not charge fees once they agree to our program.  If there ever is an instance where this is not honored we will reach out to the creditor and ask for them to waive any fees and/or bring accounts current again.  We have done this for Crystal, On June 27th of this year we credited $24 of our service fee to make up an amount on a Capital One account that was showing as past due.  We have called each of Crystal's accounts individually and they are all showing as current and are not charging fees.  There are a few that have due dates that are prior to her due date with us and these are the ones that might appear past due, but in reality are not.  We are also reaching out to her to see if there is a specific creditor that she is concerned with so that we can help her resolve that specific creditor issue like we have in the past for her.