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Skyrocketing living costs are an unavoidable fact of life in America in 2025. For some people, this is an inconvenience; for others, it’s a serious threat to their financial security.
Many people are turning to credit cards and other forms of short-term debt to make ends meet. This strategy can have dire consequences if it goes unchecked for too long. National Debt Relief offers debt settlement services to people in this position. Debt settlement is an intervention that serves as an alternative to bankruptcy. If you’re struggling with a large amount of unsecured high-interest debt, it’s something you should consider.
Bottom Line Up Front Summary
I’d happily recommend a free initial consultation with National Debt Relief to anyone struggling to keep their bills in check over a number of consecutive months. A lot of people immediately think of bankruptcy when they imagine external intervention in their financial affairs. However, bankruptcy makes a huge dent in your financial freedom. National Debt Relief can give you a less disruptive way out.
What I Like
- Small up front fees: When you’re already struggling financially, the last thing you need is another bill to pay. National Debt Relief offers free initial consultations, and you don’t pay settlement fees until they’ve done their job.
- Accreditations: The debt relief industry has its fair share of unscrupulous operators, so you need to make sure you’re not working with one of them. NDR boasts accreditations from the American Association for Debt Resolution (AADR) and the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
- Customer satisfaction: National Debt Relief has a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot from over 41,000 reviews and a 4.6 out of 5 on Google with over 10,000 ratings.
- Low minimum debt level: National Debt Relief takes on clients who owe as little as $7,500 in unsecured debt overall. Some competitors won’t touch you unless you owe at least $20,000. Debts can start to pose problems even before they reach $7,500 if your income is limited, so I’m a big fan of service providers that cater to people at this end of the scale.
What I Don’t Like
- Credit score impact: This isn’t an issue with National Debt Relief in particular; just with debt settlement in general. If you go down this road, your credit score will be affected for a number of years. There are alternatives to debt settlement that can get you out of financial trouble without leaving such a significant dent in your credit.
- Long process: Nonbankruptcy debt relief solutions do not compel your creditors to play ball. In other words, the lenders and credit card companies can simply refuse to accept your proposal and continue squeezing you, and they will do so if they think they’ll get more money that way. This means it can take years to reach a compromise that works for both sides. During that time, you’re missing payments and doing increasing damage to your credit score.
- Limited to certain unsecured debts: If your financial worries are mainly related to your mortgage or auto loan, National Debt Relief can’t really help you. The company also doesn’t negotiate debts related to taxes or child support.
How Does Debt Settlement Work?
NDR offers debt relief assistance with most types of unsecured debt, including credit card debt, personal loans, medical bills, and business debts. “Debt relief” is an umbrella term that can refer to a number of methods of addressing your financial situation. National Debt Relief specializes in debt settlement.
This involves negotiation with creditors to agree to a more favorable repayment schedule and lower interest rate.
After you sign up with NDR, the company will set up an FDIC-insured escrow account on your behalf (this is a third-party account; neither you nor NDR will be able to access funds once they enter it). You’ll start making monthly deposits into this account, and stop making monthly repayments to your creditors. As the amount in the account increases, NDR negotiates with your creditors to attempt to reach a new arrangement in relation to the money you owe, using the amount in the account as leverage.
If your creditors agree to a compromise, they’ll get paid from the escrow account, and your debts will be settled.
You must understand that, when it comes to high-interest debt, the amount you technically owe at a given stage can be much less than the amount you end up paying. If you can’t afford to pay more than the interest on your credit card bills each month, that interest will keep adding up. So, the amount you owe the company will stay roughly steady despite the hundreds or thousands of dollars leaving your account every month.
NDR does a great job of illustrating this and finding ways around it (see the worked example in the next section).
The big drawback of this system is that, because it typically involves a lot of missed payments, it causes a lot of damage to your credit score. There’s also no guarantee of a quick resolution (or any resolution at all); you could spend years missing payments only to end up back at square one, with your credit in tatters. This is a relatively rare outcome, but it can happen.
On the flip side, though, if it goes well, debt settlement can get you out of deep financial trouble without forcing you to resort to bankruptcy.
Alternatives to Debt Settlement
If you’re struggling financially, it’s imperative that you look at all your options. Don’t get involved in debt settlement (or any other solution) without weighing up all the alternatives.
Debt Consolidation
This involves taking out an entirely new loan to pay off your existing debts. This allows you to consolidate several monthly payments into one, typically at a lower rate of interest. It’s important to note that debt consolidation loans are typically only available to those with decent credit; if yours is a more advanced case, you may no longer be able to consider this option.
A key benefit of consolidation is the fact that you’ll only have to make a single monthly payment. A lot of people are attracted to debt relief by the idea of a lower overall amount owed. In my experience, though, the convenience of paying one bill a month (rather than eight or nine) is as big a win for many people. Every payment deadline you forget about means another late fee and another hit to your credit score. This is much less of a risk post-consolidation.
Bankruptcy
National Debt Relief may direct you to consider bankruptcy during your free initial consultation, if the agent you speak with feels your case is too advanced for milder forms of debt relief.
Bankruptcy is the “last chance saloon” of financial restructuring. It’s not something to be entered into lightly, but it does have the power to dig people out of very deep financial holes. If you’ve exhausted all your other options and you’re at risk of losing your home, it might be time to consider it.
As I mentioned earlier on in this post, bankruptcy is the only way to legally prevent your creditors from pursuing you. Once you successfully file for bankruptcy, an automatic stay goes into effect, meaning that creditors cannot legally sue you or take any other action against you in relation to the money you owe them. They won’t even be allowed to call or email you. This is a level of protection that none of National Debt Relief’s solutions can offer you.
However, bankruptcy also involves either the forced liquidation of your assets or a court-mandated monthly payment for up to five years. This is a big deal—debt settlement is therefore a more palatable option for many people.
Credit Counseling
Sometimes, all you need is expert guidance. Credit counseling can help you create a realistic budget and understand your options. Many nonprofits provide these sessions for free, or very affordably.
The obvious advantage to this is that there’s no formal process, fees, or direct hits to your credit score involved. It will only work in situations involving mild financial difficulty, but mild financial difficulty is usually the first stepping stone on the way to a life-changing crisis. If you’re struggling to make ends meet and your debts are beginning to pile up, I’d highly recommend looking into credit counseling sooner rather than later.
Negotiating with Creditors Yourself
Creditors are often willing to negotiate directly, especially if you’ve already missed payments. All you have to do is (to borrow a phrase from Wolf of Wall Street) “pick up the phone and start dialing.”
You can ask for lower interest rates, waived fees, or a reduced lump-sum payoff. If you succeed, you won’t have to pay any third-party fees, and you won’t suffer too great a hit to your credit score if you haven’t already missed a lot of payments.
Is National Debt Relief Worth It?
In my experience, many of the personal finance issues people encounter have as much to do with a feeling of stigma as they do with dollars and cents. If your cash flow problems have become too great for you to manage by yourself, it’s crucial that you seek outside help as soon as possible. The longer you leave unsecured debt unpaid, the more it will end up costing you.
National Debt Relief offers free initial consultations, so it won’t cost you anything to have an agent evaluate your situation and recommend a path forward. You may decide that debt relief isn’t the right path for you, but you should at least make that decision with the right information.