These independent debt advisors,
and they have all different types of names.
I'm a debt advisor, I'm a debt consultant,
I'm a debt This, I'm a debt dad.
I'm a, I'm a, I'm a person that helps you is
that they call small business owners up
and they say, we're gonna help you, uh, settle your debts
for pennies on the dollar.
Mm-Hmm. And we have relationships
with all the funders and the lenders.
We can take care of this for you.
Oh, you're paying too much.
You know, we're gonna take care of this for you.
The first thing you need to do for this
to work out is you need to stop paying them all.
If you want to get their attention
and you wanna start the process, you need
to stop paying all these people.
Terrible, terrible advice. Why?
Because you may, they may be putting
that merchant in a breach of contract
if the debt consultant, advisor, whatever they, they are,
if they do not understand the terms of the contracts
that the merchants are in, they may be advising them
to go into a breach of the agreement,
which now creates all types
of unintended consequences the merchant
may not even realize.
Yeah. Right. They're all spelled
out in the contracts, of course.
But if they're being advised
to intentionally breach the agreements intentionally
default, they may now suffer unintended consequences
and they're not going to get the help that they need.
Yeah. So when the debt advisor says, first thing you need
to do, don't pay any of these people, you have
to stop the payments.
That's how you, that's how you get notice.
You have to stop the payments.
Bad advice do not start as that's not your starting point.
Yeah. First read your contract
and find out what it means to even do that.
Don't listen to Joe Schmo who called you on the phone
and said he is a debt advisor.
That person doesn't know.
It is not an expert on your contract.
No matter what they say
or who they claim to work with, don't listen to that person.
Read the contract and then decide what you want to do.
And probably consult an attorney.
If someone says they're a debt settlement expert
and advisor and consultant.
Okay, fine. Have an attorney determine if they
know what they're talking about.
'cause what's happening is they start off with that,
Hey, don't pay.
Right. And they're gonna say, Hey, we're gonna negotiate,
we're gonna negotiate your debts with these funders
and lenders on your behalf.
We'll take it from here. We'll negotiate. Guess what?
A lot of them don't do anything. Yeah.
They don't negotiate anything.
'cause they don't have the relationship that they claim.
Some of 'em are not even calling the funders
and lenders that they're claiming to call.
Yeah. They're not doing anything. Yeah.
So take that off the table. Right.
As something that you should really,
that you think is happening.
If you're, if you're like a merchant
and you know, it only, it really only gets worse from there.
Right. And then if the, if the debt advisor's telling you,
Hey, going forward you need to deposit all your money
that you would normally pay
to these companies in a separate bank
account that we control.
No, no. That's also bad. Right.
If they're saying, send them the payments instead,
Joe Schmo debt consultant on the phone,
send me the payments.
That should be a red flag. Right? Right. Yeah.
A lot of people fall for it. Yeah. Yeah. Send
Me the payments. So
these type of people have been a plague
because they mislead
and misguide merchants,
they put them into a breach of contract.
They send their money to who they're not supposed to.
They do all the things they're not supposed to do.
And how, where do they end up?
They end up in a bad spot where they're being sued,
they're being pursued Right by the funding companies
that they thought they were working something out with.