Confliciting Debt Advice Given to Frequently
A recent feature in UK newspaper the Times highlighted how different debt advice can be given between leading debt help organizations even when the situation being presented to them i.e. level of debt, income, expenditure etc. is the same.
Another debt help website campaigning to make debt advice less commercial and more consistent is Talk About Debt. Their belief is it’s difficult to offer objective advice if you have shareholders to answer to. You either make money by targeting certain profiles of consumer e.g. employed with high debt and ability to make a good contribution but can’t pay all. Or you’re bias towards profitable solutions. Or in most cases, both.
So what’s the answer? A national debt help body created to be fair to the consumer and creditors. Thus taking a distress purchase like debt help out of the grasp of capitalism.
OK, this is unlikely to happen, however it can’t stay as it is now. If you’ve ever been in debt you’ll know that you’ll know that you’re stressed, probably not sleeping, your relationship is rocky and you often don’t know where to turn. As soon as someone (and that someone being a so called Expert) tells you they can make it better and everything will return to normal, you jump at chance.
So here’s the plan:
- Better education for all (so if you get in debt you’ll know what to do
- Government department that offers advice and negotiates with creditors
What do you think?
