Timberline FinancialReviews of timberlinefinancial.com

I have been with this company since 2018 and i finally was able to get all my accounts settled in 2022... 4 years later. It all started out great other than the fees being quite high but its expected with companies like this. Now that all accounts are settled based on the settlement quote I received from the representatives i sent the amount needed to complete the program and 2 months later my account still was opened and I wondered why. Come to find out the completion quote I received was incorrect (statement made by Rep) and they want me to pay the remaining $540.00 due to an error on their part. Definitely not happy about this turn of events in the process especially since this was 2 months ago and they just now letting me know they screwed up. Hopefully they will be able to rectify this and make it right.

Be careful, four years ago in early 2018 they made some promises to me which they have not lived up to. I am now at four years of payments with only 3 out of four accounts settled and still with $10,000 of un-negotiated debt with Chase. They had not been able to negotiate the debt down sufficiently to be able to pay it off with my payments. I have paid on time every month. Yet they still took a 25% fee and did not tell me the bad situation until I called four months before the program is supposed to end. Tyler the service rep had no sympathy and basically coldly washed his hands of any company responsibility for lack of performance on their part. They still got their fees and I’m still in a hole with no offer of help from them to finish doing what they promised they could do.

Still in the program and having issues settling a debt that was $10k. They came to me with a settlement offer more than 10k 3 months after creditors back in April sent me an offer for settling at $4,300 dollars. It is now October and I've been trying to settle for $4,300, which is now $5300, as a one-time payment for 2 weeks now. Still waiting on their approval for the settlement. Not the creditors, not my approval, Timberline approval after they have my voice recorded approving the transaction for that settlement. I am also trying to call them on Monday Oct 18th at 5:30pm eastern and it says the office is closed, their answering machine says open till 8pm! I gave 2 stars because the program could work better if I wasn't worried every week on whether or not my accounts are being worked on.

The customer service reps. I have spoken to on 3/11/21; 3/18/21 and 4/6/21 were all very helpful and pleasant. The only problem was I have had to call 3 times to try to get my Estimate to Complete processed. Today I spoke with Sade who was wonderful, answered all my questions but had to take another recording to hopefully get this processed. Will be checking my email in 2 business days to hopefully receive it. Jill Lockaby

Three years ago, I had A LOT of outstanding debt, mostly accumulated during a nasty divorce from my first wife. After researching my options, I decided to use a debt resolution company rather than filing for bankruptcy and eventually chose to use Timberline's service. Within six months of a 3-year plan, I already regretted that choice. The advisor I worked with to set up my account assured me that he would be my "guy". Any questions or concerns and all I would have to do is reach out to this person (I have forgotten his name...) and my guy would take care of it. About four months into the plan, I had some questions and emailed my guy. No response. After waiting a couple days, I called my guy and left a voicemail. Again no response. After about a week of emails and voicemails with no response, I called the general customer service number and found out that my guy was no longer with Timberline. Apparently, no one at the company was seeing this person's emails or checking his voicemail. Really??? So I tried getting my questions answered via customer service for the remainder of the plan. This worked about 5% of the time. The other 95% of the time, the customer service rep would tell me they could not access the information or did not know the answer. In which case, I was always told the CS rep would forward my question(s) to an advisor who would get back to me within 48 hours. Never happened. I don't mean it rarely happened; I truly mean that 100% of the time that I was told an advisor would get back to me, I did NOT receive a follow up phone call or email. The only times that I got more than just the extremely basic information that the CS reps have access to were when an advisor was actually available at the time of the call. On EVERY OCCASION, this was only achieved after multiple calls at all different times of the day (quite an achievement when I work full time). After 2+ years of on time payments, I was advised that the final outstanding account was being settled but there was a catch. Since Timberline had waited so long to attempt to settle this account, many late fees and so much interest had been added to the balance. Because the balance had ballooned so dramatically, the settlement was significantly higher than they had anticipated. So much so that they would need an additional $2,000.00 to pay the settlement and complete the plan!! I was told that I could either pay a significantly higher amount each month or I could extend the length of the plan by months to cover this extra amount. My wife and I chose to pay the higher amount and finish the plan in the original timeframe. Fast forward to now... 1 final payment outstanding and we will be done with this plan. We thought that was the end of the drama but NO!! We decided to buy a new boat and the bank needed some info from Timberline verifying that we are done after that 1 outstanding payment and a list of the accounts that are included in the plan, which (shocker!!) the CS rep was able to send to me. The bank asked us why one of the accounts is listed as Offer Cancelled rather than Payment Plan Active. We thought it was because that account was sent to a collection agency but I went back to Timberline for clarification. That's when Timberline responded that one of the payments made by their third-party agent was late and, therefore, sent back. (REMEMBER, all payments from us to Timberline were ON TIME.) Since that payment was returned, the offer was cancelled... TWO YEARS AGO. Why are we just finding out now? Because Timberline doesn't monitor whether their agent is doing their job properly so THEY DIDN'T KNOW! Wait, WHAT?!? So how much was the settlement for that debt? $5,200. But the agent's records show the collection agency was sent $5,750 so why isn't this debt settled?? Answer from Timberline advisor: I don't know but it will take 5-7 BUSINESS DAYS to re-negotiate the settlement. Seriously??? We need this issue resolved NOW. So I tried to get it resolved myself. Call the original creditor and told to call Collection Agency 1. Call CA1 and told that they show we paid $5,750 and should be all set but it was transferred to CA2. CA2 will have to issue the Release so call CA2. Call CA2 and told that a payment was missed so the offer was cancelled and there is nothing they can do so call the original creditor. I finally talked CA1 into recalling the debt from CA2 so they could issue the release. CA1 sent to Timberline and I received it this morning. The ONLY reason for the second star is that it now looks like the remaining accounts in the plan will be paid off and the debts released by the end of this month.

Customer service rep was great. My problem is I was quoted a number for resolving my debt. When I requested a payoff amount it was $1000 more than what I was quoted for a total when I enrolled. The problem is I’ve been enrolled in program for 15 months already so what is actually being asked if me is to pay a total $9000 more than what I was originally quoted and what is in the contract.

The first 3 years of my program were okay. I made my monthly deposits to GCS and accounts were settled. There was an instance where I had to submit extra funds but it avoided legal action. Over the past year I have been concerned with the final remaining account, the largest, which was still unresolved, or so I thought. I made several calls attempting to find out information. I never received a return call. My plan ended 1/30/2020. Tuesday, 4/14/2020, I received a call regarding a settlement offer. The offer included a requirement that I add even more funds. None of the customer service people I spoke to could explain the offer so a request was sent to the negotiator to call me. While on this call I learned another account I thought had been settled was not. The same negotiator was in charge of the account. The negotiator actually called me back. He explained the offer and the reason there was a need for more funds. However, with the second unresolved account I will now have to pay even more money. I feel Timberline Financial grossly underestimated their ability to negotiate the settlements and/or were not realistic in their "estimation" as to what they could negotiate the amount down to. My plan was supposed to be over but I will now be paying another year plus in payments.

I am under a phenomenal amount of pressure and stress right now. I was not provided any assurance that TLF would be able to continue to handle my debt resolution if I have to forego my payment of $551 which has a scheduled withdrawal day on April 20, 2020. I am going to do everything in my power to make this happen but as of today I’m not sure how. I would’ve been nice to have some understanding and assurance. Telling me that you might have to default on me just adds to the pressure and stress I feel right now. This is my honest opinion. Thank you, David Ennen