Product Description

How To Settle Your Debts is an all-inclusive enlightening guide to help individuals, families and small businesses eliminate debt without bankruptcy, debt consolidation and the damage they can cause. You learn how to legitimately eliminate debt and totally improve your life while maintaining your dignity and your reputation.

The author, a CPA and a former collection agency owner, offers solutions based on his insider knowledge of the debt collection establishment. He gives you the know-how, the tools and an understanding of your leverage that provides the confidence you need to do the job. You learn how to eliminate debt while minimizing the cost and the credit damage it can cause. Even if you re on the brink of financial ruin, you will learn how to regain financial health and get a fresh start.

How To Settle Your Debts is written in an informal style and an outline format to promote understanding and ease of reading. With its comprehensive index, it can be used as a reference manual as well as a do-it-yourself guide. It s for all those whose debts continue to grow and whose lives are being shattered by them. Below is a description of how the book will help you understand your problem and guide you to take the action necessary to end it:

You will learn the basics - fundamentals about debt, the risks of failing to pay and what creditors and debt collectors can and cannot do to collect.

You will learn about who you re up against - who the predators are and how to recognize and avoid their cons and their traps.

You will learn about your rights and how to use them to advantage - laws enacted to protect you from abuse and to punish collectors and who violate them.

You will learn to understand your problem with debt - how to expose it, examine it, evaluate it and how it's impacting your life.

You will learn about options that are available to deal with debt - how to select the one that works best for your situation and needs.

You will learn how to apply your debt solution - create and implement a plan to eliminate your debts based on your circumstances and resources.

You will learn to outwit you adversary (creditors, collectors, attorneys) - by understanding what their weaknesses are and by using "Dirty Tricks" to frustrate and discourage them.

You will learn to negotiate and use leverage you have - to convince creditors and collectors to set up arrangements to workout and settle your debts.

You will learn how to protect your assets - and your privacy and to maintain repair and rebuild your credit.

You will learn to deal with - lawsuits, judgments, secured debts, tax debts and how such obligations can often be settled or otherwise favorably resolved.

You will learn to deal with student loan debt - cope with repayment problems and how to take advantage of their favorable terms.

You will learn how to settle business debts - and save your business from bankruptcy and financial ruin.

And, you will learn how to get help if you need it - and how to avoid all the scam artists who are waiting to rip you off.

In summary How To Settle Your Debts puts you in control of your finances. It provides the knowledge, insight and the confidence you must have to eliminate debt, protect your assets and privacy and rebuild your credit. You will be able to stop collector harassment, avoid the myriad dishonest debt solution schemes, and escape from debt without the self-defeating and demeaning ordeal of bankruptcy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84209 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 326 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780979748301
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW - Among the unfortunate side effects of an economic downturn such as the United States is currently experiencing is the growing debt load that ordinary men and women find themselves having to labor under. Now in a fully updated and significantly expanded second edition, "How To Settle your Debts: Without Committing Financial Suicide" by certified public accountant Norman H. Perlmutter, is the perfect do-it-yourself manual for individuals, families, and businesses who find themselves sinking further and further into crippling debt. Of special note is the new chapter specifically addressing the problems associated with student-loan debt. A major culprit is the credit card companies who deliberately target people's desire for instant gratification for things they don't need and cannot afford. Complicated with deceptive interest rate schedules and conditions, anyone seeking to emerge from crippling debt must become informed with respect to the various techniques of predatory credit card issuers. Drawing upon his many years of experience and expertise in helping individuals and businesses deal successfully with the problems of excessive debt, Perlmutter deftly shows the non-specialist general reader how to wipe out their debt without having to resort to bankruptcy (which Congress has made even more difficult with the finance industry backed legislation); how to effectively deal with bill collectors; settling debts through leverage; clean up and rebuild personal and corporate credit ratings; deal successfully with tax debts, secured debts, and judicial judgments; resolve student loan debt repayment problems; as well as when and how to simply walk away from debts. "How To Settle Your Debts" should be considered profoundly valuable reading for anyone having to deal with problems arising from excessive debt, and be a priority acquisition for college, university, and community library Money/Finance reference collections. --The Mid West Book Review

About the Author
Known as the Get Out Of Debt Coach , Norman H. Perlmutter, CPA is an outspoken critic of the credit card industry and a frequent guest on radio talk shows. He ran a collection agency for 18 years, where he helped creditors collect past due debts from individuals and businesses. Now, the senior partner of the accounting firm Perlmutter & Associates, CPA s, LLC, he specializes in helping individuals, families and businesses deal with debt, credit and IRS problems.

Norm mediates financial disputes, gives seminars on debt relief and credit rehabilitation and is often consulted by businesses regarding matters concerning debt elimination, debt collection, credit rehabilitation and potential acquisitions of debt collection companies. He is the creator of a website that provides valuable free get out of debt assistance and innovative direct and online consulting and coaching services. And, he is a member of the American Institute of CPAs, the New Jersey State Society of CPAs, and he is on the Board of Directors and the Audit Committee of a publicly traded company.

Customer Reviews

Low on Substance
I got this book because of the outstanding reviews it already had. In hindsight, I suspect not all of them are legitimate reviews. It's difficult to imagine anyone could read the advice in this book, put it to use, and actually gain significant benefit. Though the book's description sounds very promising, I found that it didn't deliver the information it promised. Many of the scenarios in the book are unrealistic and make unhelpful assumptions. Over and over again the author directs the reader to research topics elsewhere without providing even basic information. For example: "Credit reports are difficult to read and even more difficult to understand. There are some excellent books available to help you with this." While this book is not specifically about dealing with your credit report, it seems that a bit more information about credit reports would have been provided.

Most of the advice is common sense (live within your means) or biased against any course of action other than settling with creditors. The author writes from the viewpoint that bankruptcy is the worst thing you could possibly do, but never backs up that claim with any information. I was left with the impression that the author himself isn't really sure what effect bankruptcy has.

In fact, the author's pervasive use of generalities and unrealistic suggestions made me think he doesn't actually know that much about credit (despite his alleged qualifications). For example, he repeatedly suggests bargaining with your creditors that you will pay part of your debt if they remove negative information they have already reported to the credit bureaus. But the author seems oblivious to the fact that the credit bureaus have specific rules against creditors doing this. Numerous such suggestions ruin the author's credibility.

At best, this book might be helpful as motivation to action for someone who lives behind his or her means. But if your debts are the result of unfortunate and unavoidable events in your life, and you are ready to take decisive action to get your debt under control and your credit back on track, you will find this book preachy and unhelpful.

Buy it and Save $$$
Using the information contained in the book, especially to have Patience and Persistence, I have settled 2 credit card debts, and saved $16,000 from what Credit Card #1 and Credit Card #2 were demanding. They gave in before I wore out. Having gone through this, I now feel extremely confident on settling the remaining debt for less then the current balance. Using the advice contained in Norman's book WILL work as long as don't give in until you feel you have reached a fair settlement.

Not Very Useful For the Average Consumer Debtor
This is not, in my opinion, a very useful book for the ordinary consumer debtor.

It's also a little sloppy and fast and loose with facts and law. For instance, on page ten there's a "legal note" that asserts "in a bankruptcy, an unsecured debt that has been converted to a judgment retains its unsecured character and gets no preferential treatment in a distribution." Well, not exactly. First, a judgment that's recorded at the County Recorders office in my state, Arizona, where I've practiced bankruptcy law for thirty years, becomes a judgment lien upon real property owned by the judgment debtor in that County.

And that's just one example. But what bothers me more about the book is the assumption that it's fairly easy to negotiate credit card type debts. Frankly, it once was. About thirty years ago.

But these days a consumer who tries to talk to the credit card company with whom he is trying to negotiate is just as likely as not to get a call center in a country where English is not a first language. And trying to negotiate with folks there is all but impossible, because they're paid very few rupees per hour, and can only do what they are instructed to do on their call center flow chart.

In fact, credit card debts are among the most difficult debts to negotiate away, for the simple reason that there are a bunch of them in an ordinary situation. And to make the problems go away, all of them have to be willing to play ball. And the 80/20 rule applies in negotiations with a bunch of creditors. If you have 10 creditors, and all of them have to agree to get you to your goal, there will be two that never want to see things your way.

And another thing: ordinary consumer debtors, in my experience, don't have the mind-set and psychological balance to deal with negotiating their own debts away, or down. And one reason for that is that the debtor who negotiates for himself has no professional objectivity, and that clouds his judgment.

Another idea that this book pushes is that workouts with credit card companies and collectors can be done by the consumer borrowers themselves, and that in the process they will get the credit card companies to remove the derogatory information in their credit reports. I believe it will happen at about the same time the temperature in a place that bad people may go after the end of their lives drops below the point at which water become solid.

Another odd concept in the book is that bankruptcy is financial suicide, and that most credit card and unsecured debt problems should be easily dealt with by negotiation. I simply disagree, and it's not just because I'm an Arizona bankruptcy lawyer. I've seen people with overwhelming debt rebuild their credit and their lives after bad luck or bad decisions forced them to file, and they get on with their life just fine (note: it is absolutely correct that a bankruptcy, whether a Chapter 7, 13, 11 or 12 is a very big deal, and should never be gone into lightly. That said, you shouldn't take penicillin when you have the hiccups, but if you have pneumonia, you better head to the penicillin man.) Also take a look at Bounce Back from Bankruptcy, also available on Amazon, to see exactly how difficult it is to reestablish credit.

Is there anything good about this book? Sure.

For instance, the author strongly suggests that consumer debtors make a budget and learn their "nut", and learn to live within their means. Bravo.

But after I say that, I look back at another "legal note" that's misleading: "Judgments against corporations, limited partnerships and limited liability companies are normally not enforceable against individual owners, stockholders or limited partners and should have no effect on their personal credit record."

Well, that's true as far as it goes. But in the real world of small business, the primary owners of the business almost always have to personally guarantee substantial debt incurred by the business. So ignoring a threatened lawsuit because of the "legal note" above would get the average business owner with the average lawsuit against his business into substantial hot water, because that lawsuit would normally name him as a defendant as well.

So read this book, because it's interesting and because the author is clearly passionate and sincere. But before you take ANY of his advice, talk to an "av" rated bankruptcy lawyer, or a bankruptcy attorney who has a 10.0 rating from AVVO.com, or a Martindale AV rated bankruptcy lawyer, and read a lot of other books, because if your plan is based exclusively on this book, you may be stepping on a land mine.

p.s. as I write this postscript, there is a raging debate in Congress over a provision in the Bankruptcy Code that may, after amendment, permit the stripdown of some OR all mortgages on residential real property. Will that statute pass? Listen, I've practiced bankruptcy law in Phoenix, Arizona for about thirty years, and I've watched a long series of amendments to the "New Code" of 1979; and I've watched as Congress debated in the past. The 2005 amendments took about a decade to work their way through Congress. So MAYBE the Bankruptcy Code is about to change a lot. And MAYBE it's not. But if you're contemplating bankruptcy in Phoenix, Arizona, or anywhere else, you should be aware that the law is currently MAYBE about to change in a way that could be helpful to debtors, IF they qualify and are willing to put up with a Chapter 13 bankruptcy (which makes a root canal look like fun).