Part of our Series : Debt Settlement Company Reviews

ClearOne is a debt settlement company based in Maryland that prides itself on customer service. For being a relatively new company, they seem to be pretty transparent in how they run their business, with lots of information about their company published on their website.

Feedback across the web is sparse and anecdotal, but generally positive on ClearOne. No glaring negatives appear.

Here’s some quick facts on ClearOne Advantage:

About the Company

They recently changed their name to ClearOne Advantage and they have no unresolved complaints with the Better Business Bureau of Maryland. An interesting bit about the company that I came across is that they used to refer the negotiation process out to another company, Century Negotiations Inc. Whether they continue to do this is unclear.

ClearOne is one of the first companies I’ve come across that provides up to a 48-month payment plan. Of course, it depends on your debt amount, but this could possible allow individuals with much higher debt loads to be able to afford a settlement plan.

The downside to this is that it’s often rare that a creditor that will wait that long to settle with you on a delinquent credit card account. Most likely, your account will be charged off and sent to collections or to the courts long before you reach 48 months.

UPDATE: I got the following note from ClearOne:

“We do not offer a 48 month program. We will offer an introductory payment for the first 12 or 19 months but after that the payment changes so they complete the program in a maximum of 40 months. We do not extend programs further than 40 months for the exact reasons that you stated in your review.”

Fees and Charges

ClearOne Advantage charges a fee of 15% of your total debt. It’s broken down into a 5% retainer and a 10% service fee. The retainer is charged over the first three to four months of your program, and the service fees are billed over the following 15 months. They also charge a $39 Maintenance free from months 20 to completion.

The maintenance fee may be there as a encouragement to save more quickly so you can settle any outstanding debts you still may have at month 20.

Can I Get a Refund?

They have a limited refund policy, stating it they don’t save you at least 3 times what you paid in service fees, they’ll refund the service fees.

Website Information

In their favor, they have a handy, forum-type page on the site, called “Debt Relief Questions & Answers” in which answers pretty much any question you have about the company or the settlement process.

I found several broken links, but that may be due to the fact they are changing their domain from clearonedebt.com to clearoneadvantage.com

Rating - If you have done business with ClearOne Debt Relief or ClearOne Advantage, please rate this company and post a comment below.