Are you wondering which is better - to work out a credit card debt settlement or to file for bankruptcy but are not at all sure which is the right one for you then you need to take a few things into consideration before you make any decision which is right for you at this time. Perhaps it feels the right thing to do is to file for bankruptcy and leave all the hassles of nasty phone calls and demanding letters well behind, but lets look at some facts here.

So, you are in the position where you have been unable to pay off your credit card/s for quite a while now and its got to the stage where your card/s company have sold on your debt to a debt collection agency. Of course, the collection agency will contact you very soon as they want to get “their” money back and also profit too. They want immediate payment.

Let us say that you have been unable to pay off your visa credit card for quite some time and the card company have now sold your debt to them to a debt collection agency. The collection agency will shortly be in touch with you, often firstly with a letter and then with a follow up phone call with demands for immediate payment.

However, when it does get to this stage in the affair, the debt collection agency will actually offer to accept a fair amount less than your actual debt currently stands at. So as an example let us say that the collection agency will receive, if you decide to pay them, a commission of 60% of the reduced debt offer. Following so far?

Although the card company is not going to receive anything near the initial amount owed to them this $3,200 is still more than they would attain in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you were to go for Chapter 7 bankruptcy they would receive absolutely nothing!

The credit card company will obviously receive a much-reduced amount to what is actually owed to them and the reason they are willing to accept this is that they compare this figure firstly to what they would get if you were to declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy - they would get less. If you were to declare Chapter 7 however, they would get absolutely nothing!

So you can in time end up paying far less than you would do otherwise via debt settlement. Anything else to think about? Yes, actually. If you are to take on bankruptcy this will remain on your credit file for a total of 10 years, affecting your credit for that period of time. If you were to take on debt settlement your file would be “tainted” for 7 years only.

Further, if you are to discontinue with the plan at any stage your case will be dismissed and you will be right back at the beginning once again, having paid all those added fees, which you lose anyhow.

Thus it appears that unless your debt has now become entirely unmanageable - and I mean entirely out of control - you should always strongly consider a debt settlement plan before contemplating bankruptcy.

You can learn more about credit card help and about a debt consolidation program to suit your needs.