If you use a debt counseling service that consolidates your debt for you can you still make payments to your credit card company directly?

Answer 1

When you use a debt counseling service that consolidates your debt for you, you are supposed to make one monthly payment to the credit counseling company instead of paying your credit card companies individually. However, if you come into some extra money and you want to make an extra payment directly to the credit card company, you may need to do some research. Once you sign a contract with your credit counseling company you'll need to abide by the terms of that agreement. Many credit counseling companies want all payments made to your credit cards to go through them. This will mean that you will need to send the extra money to the credit counseling service rather than directly to your credit card company. Another thing to think about is if you do send the funds to the credit counseling service, you might not have any control over which credit card they apply it to. You can tell them where you would like it applied, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's where they have to apply it.