Censorship? SPAM? All info on credit repair is "must pay"

What truth? "Shill articles" sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory.

That there is no easy way out of debt *is* the truth. The only ways out of debt, other than just paying up or trying to deny that you owe anything are to declare bankruptcy (which doesn't suit everyone and is certainly not easy) or to negotiate a deal with your creditors by hoping to convince them that they'd be better off to write off a substantial fraction of the debt than to sue for payment in full, because in the latter case they'd force bankrupty which would mean they'd get nothing.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

But if the debtor has enough to offer the creditors a "fraction of the debt", what happens to that money on bankruptcy to give the creditors nothing?

It goes to other creditors than the ones who are thinking about suing.

AIUI it is not the case that all creditors get bundled together and get an equal fraction of (the proceeds from the sale of) what assets there might be, but they are banded into groups of different priorities. I'm not sure how it goes, but I imagine the taxman would get first call, the bankruptcy practitioner second (or possibly the other way round), secured debtors third, and then the rest.

If there isn't enough to clear the debts in the first two or three bands, there will be nothing left for those in the last one or two.

Perhaps instead of "which would mean they'd get nothing" I should have said "which might mean they'd get even less or perhaps nothing at all".

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

But shouldn't the debtor be offering that money to the creditors in the higher bands *before* they offer it to those in the lower bands, anyway - even if they don't go bankrupt? [Apart from the 'bankruptcy practitioner', I guess, which won't apply if not going bankrupt.]

So is it just that the extra creditor on bankruptcy, the 'bankruptcy practitioner', would get the money instead of the (lower band) creditors?

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Just the 'bankruptcy practitioner' fees less than otherwise?

That would depend on the circumstances.

I guess the answer would be "yes" if he got into a position where there is a risk of the higher priority lender pressing for bankruptcy or moving for repossession, and if offering the money would avoid it.

But the answer would probably be "no" otherwise. For instance, he might have suffered a drop in income which left him in the position of still being able to keep up mortgage payments but not the full payments on an unsecured loan. He might have negligible savings and only low-value chattels and be in negative equity, and so if he were forced into bankruptcy the unsecured lender would get nothing while the mortgagee would take a slight drop. But prior to bankruptcy the mortgagee would not even know there's anything amiss, so I don't see what would be gained by offering them anything at that stage.