There's nothing that sounds more appealing to someone drowning in consumer debt than the claims of a debt settlement program. They promise to negotiate with your creditors to reduce interest rates and even forgive a percentage of your debt in exchange for a fee. What they don't tell you is that some of these companies are not licensed and the only people they really help are themselves. Very few creditors will negotiate lower rates or forgive debts until a debtor is severely behind in their payments. Disreputable companies will urge you to get behind in your payments, save the money you would have paid, and let the debt settlement company negotiate a settlement for that amount. Besides further damaging your credit score, studies show that many companies don't fulfill their promises. In an investigation of one debt settlement company by the Federal Trade Commission, it was found that only 1.4% of their clients ever cleaned up their credit record. However, in some cases the fees reached thousands of dollars. In many of those instances, it would cost less to hire a consumer attorney.