CrediCure - Law Offices Of Richard A. Brennan scam and a ripoff Frederick Maryland

I entered a DMP with United Christian Financial/CrediCure in March 2006. I had never considered a debt management program before since all of my credit card accounts were in good standing. I didn't know what to look for so I randomly chose a company off the internet. United Christian Financial advertised that they could reduce interest rates by more than half and that I could be debt free in as little as 3 years. This sounded amazing. Most of the interest rates on my credit cards were 20%+. I was tired of making minimum payments and not seeing any real progress or reduction in my debts. So I decided to sign up. I thought I could get ahead since my student loans are due now and I'm not able to defer them any longer, I just wanted to pay off the other debt I had as soon as possible.

I called United Christian Financial. That was the biggest mistake I could have ever made. They set me up with the program. I gave them all of my personal information and my checking account number. I was told that the first payment would be electronically taken out by them and the following payments would be taken out by CrediCure. I received contracts via email that I had to sign and send back and the program would start immediately and I would be on my way to a debt free life! The agent explained to me that I would be receiving phone calls from all of my creditors within the first month because proposals needed to be sent out and they needed agreement from all my creditors. Payment would begin in April and all the calls would cease at that point.

Things were ok for a few months until July. I began to receive daily phone calls from all three of my creditors. They kept insisting that payment for June had not been made. I was baffled because they sure didn't forget to take the payment out of my checking account. I called CrediCure and was referred to the Law Offices of Richard A. Brennan. I called the law office and spoke with a customer rep. She said that it was a computer error and payment for June and July would be sent out immediately. I was told that double payments would be received by all of my creditors within 48 hours. The daily calls continued and I explained the situation to the credit card companies. About a week later I was still receiving calls. Payment had still not been received. They all wanted me to make payments immediately to cover the late fees. That was not possible since CrediCure was continually taking out $272 from my checking account. I didn't have the extra money.

I was absolutely livid. I called the law office back and spoke to Nikki (Nicole). She told me that it was "a glitch in the system and a one time thing". She advised me that all would be back in order by August and that I should ignore the phone calls. That was unacceptable so she gave me her direct line and said that I should refer the creditors to her when they called again. She told me to tell them that I was being represented by her law offices and that sending them money or even speaking to them was a breach of contract. She also told me that they would try to get me to send them money anyway they could. I was naive and believed her story.

August rolled around and the calls continued. I called Nikki several times and left messages and never received a response. I called the law office again and was given to a different customer service rep. She "looked" up my account and said that new proposals had to be sent out. She put me on hold while she faxed out and emailed new proposals. When she came back on the line, she said that it was all taken care of and everything would be ok. I believed that lie as well.

September is upon us and the calls are still occurring. I finally spoke to all of my creditors. I have found out that they have not received payment since May.

Then a few weeks later, I received correspondence from the law office stating that due to industry changes CrediCure was forced to close in February 2006! I signed up with them in March! The letter states that many creditors requested the law office to remit payment in manual checks instead of electronic payment processing. Sending manual checks caused delays on the creditors' part in processing of payments. In some cases, it has taken creditors nearly 90 days to process the manual checks. In an effort to rectify this situation, the law office cancelled and reissued some checks.

This apparently caused issues for the law office because during late July and early August, they are claiming, creditors were able to cash both checks, causing accounts to post double payments. In other cases, it caused one of the two checks to come back to the creditor as not honored due to the stop payment on the duplicate check. They apologize for any inconvenience. The letter then goes on to propose a "better solution." Since debt restructuring is the core representation of the law office, they are better equipped to handle my account. They propose to settle my debt for a fraction of the outstanding balance and can save me 50% or more of my debt and have me debt free in 36 months. Fees would not increase over what I am currently paying and often times may be lower or shorter in term. I fell for this lie as well.

I contacted the law office and spoke with a paralegal. Her name is Heather L. Durff. I asked Heather about more information on the debt settlement program. She explained to me that Richard Brennan would negotiate with my creditors and settle my debt for half of what I owe. Fair enough, right?? So then I asked about the fees. Heather said that I would have to pay a retainer fee (50% of my outstanding debt, not to include the late fees or accrued interest because those are my responsibility now --- even though they were late on making the payments not me!!) and pay for any other additional services that may be incurred during the negotiations.

Half of my debt is about $3000. I can't afford that!! She faxed over a few agreements that I really didn't look at closely because I've had it with them. But I did notice that I would have to close my checking account and open a new one with a financial institute of their choice. No thanks. My bank told me that because I'm in a DMP, the chances of me opening an account anywhere else are slim to none because of the risk. Heather also told me that if I chose not to take this route, the law office would set me up with another credit counseling agency.

CrediCure and Richard Brennan have taken my credit and run it straight into the ground. I went from having excellent credit to the worst credit ever. My credit is so bad that my department store creditors are reducing my limits because I'm not worthy of having limits that high. I had a dept. store credit card with a $3000 limit. They did a review of my credit and have reduced my limit to $350. I went from having debt totaling around $6000 to now owing more than $11,000. I'm being threatened to being sent to collections by all of my creditors unless I make minimum payments of around $500 to each of them.

BTW --- they still haven't forgotten to take the payment out of my checking account!!

Please do not get involved with this organization. It is a scam and a ripoff. I have my State Senator and State Representative looking into this for me. If possible, I plan on taking legal action.

Veronica
Tucson, Arizona
U.S.A.