If you are suffering from financial difficulties your first point of call maybe the internet. Simply type in ‘Debt’ on Google and you will see a bewildering array of companies promising to sort out your debts and wipe of vast amounts off the money you owe. But what do all these mean? Well, due to the nature of how debt solutions work, not a great deal.
As an exercise before writing this article I typed in Debt on Google.co.uk and had a look at the results. The first thing that grabbed me was the outrageous claims made by some companies in the advertising. The most common way of inciting people to click on an ad is to extol the virtues of IVA’s. IVA’s can wipe off large amounts of debt, however the claims made by some companies are utterly unrealistic and serve only to get clicks and hopefully get people to contact the company. Some companies were advising they could wipe of f ‘95% of your debts’….utter garbage. Theoretically this is true, however in the entire history of IVA’s a debtor has never successfully proposed an IVA that only paid back 5% of the total debt. The most common amount advertised was 75% off debts wiped off. This too is perhaps a little unrealistic, most creditors look for at least 35p in the ? to be repaid although occasionally will allow lower through.
The next claim that really angered me was the amount of companies saying they could solve debt in times frames ranging for 24 to 72 hours. There is no way this is possible. It is simply not true and utterly misleading. Equally misleading were the companies offering ‘debt tests’. These tests simply consisted of answering a set of questions about how much I owed which all resulted in me giving my details to the companies in questions for a call back. These tests are simply designed to get details and nothing more.
Another method I noticed that was very popular was to claim the service you were getting ‘Government Approved’ debt solutions. In short they mean they can set up IVA’s, the legislation behind which is government regulated. .However, the companies in question seem to like to think advertising they have been somehow ‘chosen’ by the government to help you. Wrong. They are simply trying to make themselves look more official as a way of giving a perception that they are official government bodies. Some had even used .org domain names to further add to this illusion.
Don’t be mistaken for thinking that the organic results displayed are there because of quality or popularity. Results on Google can be manipulated by companies at great expense and effort so don’t be fooled into thinking those at the top are necessarily better than those ranked below.
The most important thing to remember is that there is a lot of money in helping people with debt and there is a lot of competition. With this in mind it is hardly surprising that companies are going to try anything to get you to click on their site. I’m not suggesting these companies offer a poor service, however don’t be fooled by the advertising, if it sounds too good to be true then it is.
For more information please proceed to
www.ausdebtsolutions.net
www.ausdebtadvice.net
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