Cambridge Credit CounselingReviews of cambridge-credit.org

Response from Cambridge Credit CounselingJun 12, 2025

We are happy to assist you with joining our program, but in order for any counselor to create a debt management plan for you, we must have accurate account information. You had initially inquired about enrolling in our debt management plan in April but declined to do so at that time. You recently contacted our office to ask if you could begin a debt management plan in June. You spoke with one of our Counseling Managers, who tried to help you understand that the account balances you had provided to our counselor in April were no longer accurate, and she just needed to verify the current balances with you. (Even if you don't make charges on an account, the bank that issued your card will assess interest and/or finance charges that result in changes to your balance.) Our Counseling Manager had confirmation from a recent credit report that your account balances had, indeed, changed since April, but you didn’t want to make the updates with her. She is happy to discuss your account moving forward, but please understand that lenders and state regulators require us to use accurate information when submitting your accounts for a debt management plan. Like you, we want your accounts to run smoothly, and the information we're requesting is absolutely needed. UPDATE 06/12/25 You began speaking with one of our counselors in March, but your start date was originally set for April 14th. Our counselors are happy to provide the information needed and answer your questions.

Response from Cambridge Credit CounselingAug 23, 2019

Dear Ms. Perry, Your account was transferred to our agency in July 2017, when your original agency, Cornerstone, decided to retire from this business. At that time, we reviewed all of your accounts and confirmed that you were current on all of them. The only issue we could discover involved a due-date change required by one of your creditors, Huntington Bank. We left you a message and sent an email to you so we could notify you of your creditor’s requirement, but never received a call back. When we learned in November that you had never requested the change in due date change, we contacted you to remind you of the importance of following through on your creditor’s request and you hung up on our representative because you were at work and said you were too busy to discuss it. (Our calls are recorded.) As with all clients, though a debt management plan can be extremely effective in reducing monthly payments (Your interest rates were reduced to between 6% and 7.99%.), there is a shared responsibility in the outcome of the plan. In your case, your payment history was nothing short of excellent – 30 on-time payments until your accounts were paid in full. Your only shortcoming had to do with the aforementioned due-date change. We stress with all clients that their creditors will continue to communicate directly with them, through monthly statements, etc. We also emphasize that Cambridge does not receive those communications. When we learned, after the fact, that you hadn’t responded to the due date change request, we did our best to get you to follow through and make that easy change, but you became frustrated and hung up on us causing the due date to never get changed and you would have continued to receive notices from them until you paid them off in December 2018. In closing, we congratulate you on becoming debt-free through our program and wish you continued success in your future.

Response from Cambridge Credit CounselingNov 27, 2018

Before we address Ms. Carson’s inaccurate and baseless claims, it’s important for readers to understand how a debt management plan, or DMP, works. When a consumer enrolls in a plan, they choose which of their unsecured credit accounts to include, and the counseling agency makes payment proposals to each of those creditors, securing interest rate reductions and fee waivers whenever possible. The enrolled accounts are closed, which is a trade-off for whatever concessions the creditor chooses to grant to the consumer. The client makes a single monthly payment to the counseling agency, which then distributes appropriate amounts to each enrolled creditor. If the client fails to make a payment to the counseling agency, no funds can be sent to the client’s creditors. Counseling agencies are not lenders. We cannot cover missed payments, nor are we in any position to know what is happening with any account left off the DMP. Both of these facts are important in Ms. Carson’s case, as she failed to make timely payments, and she had other accounts that were seriously past-due that were not included in her program, but which are most certainly impacting her credit standing. All counseling calls at Cambridge are recorded, and a review of Ms. Carson’s case indicates clearly that her counselor reviewed all required material with her. Prior to enrollment, she was also provided with a written summary of her proposed Debt Management Plan, which breaks down everything she’d need to know about the accounts she had chosen to include in her plan, as well as the rate concessions we hoped to secure, the total amount to be paid over the estimated term, Cambridge’s fees – everything. The contents of a DMP Summary and our contract are closely regulated by the states. We don’t hide anything. Furthermore, our records show that Ms. Carson’s account balances did not double during the 9-month run of her DMP, as she alleges, though they would have increased due to her failure to keep pace with her required monthly payments. At the time Ms. Carson cancelled her Debt Management Plan, in September 2018, her credit report indicates she also had a medical bill in collections and two other charged-off debts that weren’t present at the time she enrolled with Cambridge, so it would have been impossible for her counselor to provide any guidance about those three accounts at the time. While we do sympathize with her situation, we feel certain that Ms. Carson was provided accurate information, and that her current situation is the result of her failure to make timely payments on her DMP and on at least 3 other accounts that were not part of her program.