‘I celebrated’: How a Matthews woman says she erased $45,000 in credit card debt

MATTHEWS, N.C. — A Matthews woman told Channel 9 that she erased $45,000 in credit card debt.

Shaunda Luther says she was studying to get her Ph.D., going through an expensive divorce, and racking up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

“I was absolutely living above my means at the time, but the divorce compounded that,” she said.

She says her mother told her about a nonprofit credit counseling group she had used, Money Management International (MMI).

Luther says it took five years, but that MMI helped her erase all that credit card debt.

“I celebrated,” she told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke. “(It) freed me from an unhealthy relationship with money and credit cards.”

Jonathan Wolfsohn is a Charlotte-based counselor with MMI.

He told Stoogenke that most clients pay about $24 each month for the service. The nonprofit then negotiates with their creditors to get them a much lower interest rate (on average about 7% lower, according to Wolfsohn). He says it takes most people 3-5 years to pay off their debt and that the average credit score goes up 84 points. They pay MMI and MMI pays the creditors.

“We pay back the full principal amount of what you owe, on time, every month, to zero balance,” he told Stoogenke.

Analysts also recommend another nonprofit that does credit counseling, GreenPath.

For information on how to avoid debt relief scams, click here.

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