American Financial Service Review | American Financial Service Review |
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The first thing I came across about American Financial Service is that they have a BBB rating of A-, which is pretty good for a company in an industry where companies come and go and change their names every few years. AFS is based in Bakersfield, California and is also known as World Class Debt Services, an name they don’t seem to be using anymore. Here are some quick facts about American Financial Service:
About the Company AFS has been in business almost six years, which is typical for a the debt settlement industry right now. They don’t seem to be a shady organization as they are members of TASC (The Association of Settlement Companies) and of the Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce. The Program The program is the standard one, where they come up with an affordable monthly payment, based on your total debt to be settled, your income and expenses and try to work it into a time frame of up to 36 months. They are in constant contact with your creditors, and when you have “saved” up enough money that’s acceptable to a creditor, the creditor is paid the reduced amount (the “settlement”) and the process is repeated for each additional creditor.
They charge the typical 15% of the total debt that you enroll in the program. According to the company, it’s split up into “one or two down payments” then monthly payments for 1 year. I find it interesting that they can’t decide whether it’s 1 or 2 down payments. My guess is that if the required down payment is huge, they may try to soften the blow and break it into two payments. The other thing to watch is that they make you pay all their fees by the end of the first year. So after the first year of a typical 3 year program, they are working for “free”. To me, that doesn’t provide much incentive for them to work as hard for you since they’ve already collected everything they’re going to get from you. Most other debt settlement companies will make their fee part of your monthly payment for the duration of the program, thus giving you a consistent payment amount and at least a small token of assurance that they still need to “earn” your payment. The company’s website says nothing about whether or not they give refunds, full, partial, or otherwise. Interesting Things American Financial Service is of of the only companies that I’ve seen that, in addition to customer testimonials, have creditor testimonials. They have several quotes from reps from Fleet, Chase and other creditors saying that American Financial Services is prompt and responsive to them. It’s definitely a plus for AFS because it demonstrates they already have good relationships with creditors, and that can only be beneficial to AFS’s clients looking for settlements. I think this is a pretty unique feature that I haven’t seen anywhere else. It sort of gives you and inside picture of how the settlement companies work with the creditors. Website Experience The website is full of information regarding debt settlement and seems to be very upfront about disclosing everything regarding who qualifies, what you can expect to happens to your credit. The following statements reflect that:
Do they use the same “unsecured” website for you to log in to your account? Hope not. Using an expired security certificate since June of 2008 is really not acceptable. Does not inspire confidence. Rating - If you have done business with American Financial Service or World Class Debt Services, please rate this company and post a comment below. Related Articles: |
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I was asked by reader to review the debt settlement company American
Financial Service, so here it goes.
Fees and Charges
One annoying thing about the website is that I got a Server Certificate Error
every time I clicked on other pages on the site. This error is pretty
unprofessional, considering you are trusting this company with your sensitive
financial information.| < Prev | Next > |
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