 TITLE: Can Credit Counseling Hurt Your Credit? CONTENT: Does Credit Counseling Appear on Your Credit Report?\n----------------------------------------------------\nCredit counselors offer a variety of services, including everything from providing basic money management advice to setting up a plan to help you pay off debt. If you have a lot of unsecured debt that you're struggling to repay—especially on credit cards—but you aren't ready for more drastic measures like bankruptcy, your credit counselor may recommend setting up a debt management plan.\nWith a debt management plan, you make one monthly payment to the agency for all of your eligible debts, and then it divides up that amount and pays your creditors directly. You'll typically pay a small fee upfront and as well as a monthly fee for the service, and you'll likely have to close the credit cards included in the plan.\nCredit counseling simplifies your repayment process, ideally making it easier to pay off your debt. In some cases, credit counselors can negotiate lowered interest rates, reduced monthly payments and more with your creditors, which could save you money.\nHow will all this play out on your credit report? When you repay a debt through a debt management plan, a creditor may add a comment to the account on your report saying so. Future lenders will be able to see the notation when they run a credit check during the application process, but it won't directly impact your credit score.\nThat said, there are some aspects of the credit counseling process that can influence your credit score for better or for worse. END