Meltdown 101: Can I settle my credit card debt?

NEW YORK — Pay a fraction of what you owe, walk away debt-free. If the premise of credit card debt settlement sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. Debt settlement is when a cardholder agrees to pay a portion of a balance in exchange for the remainder of the debt being forgiven. The benefit for card companies is that they salvage at least part of a debt that otherwise could go uncollected. The practice is gaining attention, in large part because of the explosion of firms promising to whittle down credit card balances. Some claim they…

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