Speaker: Nicole
What was your situation before you enrolled — how did it feel and what made you decide to enroll in debt settlement?
Nicole: Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to share my feedback about ClearOne Advantage. I remember sitting in my office feeling completely devastated. I just was on the brink of a divorce, a very traumatic divorce, and I found out that my ex-husband opened up a credit card and had thousands and thousands of dollars on there that I did not know of. And because it was in my name, I must have signed for something along the way or agreed to something. I'm not really sure how it transpired, but I ended up with all this debt and he was unwilling to pay any of it. So, I'm sitting here with thousands of dollars in legal fees and thousands of dollars now in debt that I didn't even know I had and looking at my finances and looking at what I potentially thought could be the road ahead and just feeling very scared and overwhelmed about everything. Look at the the interest fee on my, on this credit card and just feeling very frustrated and overwhelmed and I started to just sit at my desk and just pray. Like, I don't know what to do. I don't know who to go to. I don't know the next step to take. All I know is I don't have this money to pay every month and I don't want, I think it was between $10,000 and $12,000 in debt on this credit card, Like I'll never be able to pay that off, and just not knowing how this is going to work. So, I started to Google, and this is way before chatGPT. So I'm Googling and I'm like, what do you do when you're in this situation? And ClearOne Advantage popped up on the screen and I was like, what is this? And it kind of said ad next to it, so I was like, let me see what this is and I read it and I thought this is interesting. I started to listen to the testimonies of others and to read their stories, and I thought, I wonder if this is real, you know. So, I called them and this really nice lady explained everything to me about how ClearOne works and, I was still really nervous about, you know, just thinking like, is this a scam? Are they really there to fight for people? Like, who really fights for people? You know, that's just not very common unless there's something huge in it for them. and so, as I understand people taking their cuts, sometimes it's to the point where it really is a disadvantage for you. So, I really didn't know, you know what to expect from this, but as the conversation unfolded, she, you know, I agreed to having her send some documents. I reviewed them. I ended up signing, all of these ClearOne documents. She explained them step-by-step because I had a lot of questions and I didn't really understand some of the, you know, legal lingo and I remember signing all the documents and then just going, OK God, like, I hope this is what you want me to do. I hope this is what's right for me right now, and then as I got, you know, involved with ClearOne, I just felt less pressure, you know, I just felt like, OK, they are actually in control of the situation, which reduced, you know, the anxiety that I was having with all of the financial debt that I had now incurred.
What was the debt relief program experience like for you — what results did you get and how did you feel when it was completed?
Nicole: The debt relief program was really simple on my end. So, I was assigned kind of a case manager, and I would check in with this person regularly, just because I wanted to know how things were going. And when I would call, if that person wasn't available, somebody else would talk with me and they would explain exactly where I'm at in the process, how much money's been paid off and, you know, what's left. And I remember a specific point in time where the bank from where this card was from refused to decrease the debt into this certain portion that ClearOne was fighting for me for. And, I remember the lady from ClearOne, she just said to me, "don't worry, like our lawyers are on it and this is what we're going to expect and this is how many months it's going to take." And she would tell me it would take 2 months. Sometimes it would be 30 days, sometimes it would be up to 3 months, and then she said, "but you can check back in," and I would, I would check back in and she would say, "yep, they're still working on it. It's, you know, they've now, you know, received it and they're reviewing it," the lawyers from the bank, or she would just tell me what the steps were in the process and where things were at. And I just felt so confident that, and reassured that somebody actually was handling my case, that they could see an actual record of the interactions that I've had, the phone calls that I've made with people, where ClearOne was at as far as the, fighting for me you know, with the legal members from the bank that this card was, issued from and it was it just felt so comforting to know that there was a real chance that this debt was, you know, being paid off. And so, I would pay monthly installments through ClearOne that they arranged, from the bank and it was very strategic. Everything was, you know, in writing and it was very clear how much I had to pay. There were times where I paid too much and they said, you know, we'll review your account and if you've paid too much, we'll issue you a refund at the end, which I think they're still in the process of doing, because there was a period where I overpaid. but I'm, you know, I'm not worried because I know I've been with ClearOne and they're still reviewing, you know, things, and that sort of stuff. And so, anyway, I just felt so confident, like even having overpaid, even knowing that, you know, if I did pay too much, they'd reissue it even if and then knowing like every month, this is what I pay and it's going towards the direct payment of the credit card, not the outstanding interest that the bank had attached, you know, to this particular card transactions. And so, anyway, I just felt so confident and I just felt so reassured that when I would call, they could actually see the transactions. And they could see all the conversations that I had and I would document everything and they would share their name and hours were spent on the phone with people. I would spend hours with people just reviewing every part to, to know like what is my responsibility, make sure I'm doing everything on my end. and I have to say, every single interaction, which is so unusual for an agency, every single interaction the person was so kind on the other end and so thoughtful and explained everything to me. And I got such amazing results from that over the expected time that the card was expected to be paid off, it was paid off. All the finances went, you know, through ClearOne. There was all the transactions were noted and dated, and I just, it made me just feel so confident in this process and that, while, there is something and people and an agency and an organization that actually fights for people who get in situations like mine that were completely unexpected and not something that I had incurred. So, I just felt so grateful and I still feel so grateful for this experience. And I'm so, it's like just a weight lifted off my shoulders. In fact, I have never touched a credit card since. I pay everything in cash, or use a debit card because I just want to be fiscally responsible and ClearOne Advantage really taught me how to be fiscally responsible and I'm so, so grateful for just their guidance and their, the way that they delivered everything, how all the transactions were so clear and so clean. And I just truly feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
What would you tell someone who’s thinking about enrolling in a debt settlement program?
Nicole: I would say do it. I am so grateful that I did. I would recommend asking a lot of questions, keeping notes on all your conversations, and, being responsible yourself, overall, I would say do it. It completely changed my life.
