Is Lloyd Ward & Associates a Legit Company? How Do We Get Our Money Back? – Cynde

“Dear Damon,

I advised my son to join Lloyd Ward & Associates group for debt negotiation to reduce their credit card debt of apporx. $14000.00. They have been making an approx $250.00 payment for over two years now. When they asked for an update of debt negotiation they were told that the payments they were sending are but into a Trust Account, and that they didn’t have enough to start negotiating their debt. We requested a breakdown of our Trust account and to date have not received any but their Lloyd Ward & Associates Updated Negotiation Form for electronic signing. I have recently Google’d this company and find many complaints that they are misrepresenting themselves and this is just a SCAM company.

Can you shed any light on what our next move might be to either verify this company is legit (they are not not BBB rated company nor can they practice in California from what I am reading) and if not, how we go about getting them to return are money?

Cynde”

Hello Cynde,

What you will find if and when you ever do get a breakdown is that Lloyd Ward along with many debt settlement companies prior to a new law passed in Oct. 2010 banning the practice, has charged a majority of their fees upfront and very little of the payment was actually going into your trust account.

Unfortunately the way they write their contracts is that if you quit you are not likely going to receive a refund because they typically say that the money is earned when they collect it.

Since I am not aware of your son’s actual situation I cannot tell you what you should do next regarding the debt. If you cancel Lloyd Ward to stop the bleeding of fees for doing basically nothing, there is no guarantee you will get a return of any of that money.

I recently heard that Lloyd Ward was moving away from debt settlement and getting into loan modifications as well.

Personally, if it were me, I would demand a refund and then depending on the situation, either work directly with the creditors yourself, or possibly look into hiring a settlement company that doesn’t charge any fees until the account is settled.

Please keep in mind though, without knowing the financial circumstances of your son, I can not say whether or not that a debt settlement approach is appropriate for him at this time or not.

Damon is a talented independent debt coach that provides in-depth assistance and consultations for people struggling with debt. If you want a personal debt coach to help you through a difficult situation or want assistance to find secret discounts offered by debt settlement companies I think Damon Day is an excellent person to contact for advice and assistance. He can be reached directly at DamonDay.com

If you have a debt related question you’d like to ask, just use the online form.