FENLAND: Be afraid, be very afraid, of debt busters that come with strings attached says CAB

FENLAND Citizens' Advice Bureau this week warned people to resist being tempted by advertisements offering to wipe out all their debts.

The bureau is concerned by the advertising claims made by a growing number of companies which suggest they can successfully get debts written off.

Bureau manager Linda Hutchinson said the ads sometime suggested debtors could win compensation by challenging credit card and loan companies over whether some credit agreements can legally be enforced.

"Misleading claims wrongly suggest that the vast majority of credit agreements are unenforceable," she said.

Ms Hutchinson said: "These ads appear to offer an easy way out to people who have credit debts they are struggling to pay. But many credit agreements do meet the legal requirements and therefore can't easily be challenged as unenforceable.

"A CAB adviser can check for free if there may be genuine grounds for a challenge.

"We would urge people in debt to think very carefully indeed before spending money they are unlikely to get back on a 'solution' that in many cases will just make their debt problems worse. Usually if something looks too good to be true that's because it is.

"We know from experience that most people want to pay back their debts but may turn to what seems like an instant solution out of desperation. The CAB provides free, confidential, independent and expert advice that can help people get debt free and stay that way."

She said some advertisements wrongly claim credit cards can be written off within a few weeks, that a positive outcome is guaranteed, and that the company can write off all outstanding debts, get all previous payments returned, and allow people to keep any goods purchased.

"Some advertising suggests wrongly that it costs nothing to make a claim."

Ms Hutchinson said a rash of such advertising has recently appeared in newspapers and on the internet.